Windows Vista climbed up in the space occupied by Windows XP to claim the second most used operating system on the market since mid-2007. Since the January 2007 launch, Vista’s growth has somewhat stabilized at around 10 million units per month. At the end of March 2008, Microsoft revealed that it had sold over 140 million Vista licenses worldwide. As of May, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer claimed that Vista had passed the 150 million mark.W3Counter puts Vista at 7.69% in May 2008 compared to 1.91% the same month of the past year. In March 2008, OneStat indicated that in its statistics, Vista is at 13.76% up from July 2007 when it accounted only for 12.72%. Net Applications reveal the most consistent growth for the latest Windows client, from 0.93% in February 2007, to 15.26% in May 2008.
Without establishing the records Microsoft was aiming for it, Vista’s adoption rate does not qualify the operating system for a failure by any measure. However, the biggest catch behind the uptake of Vista is the fact that it is almost entirely governed by the sales of new OEM computers. Original equipment manufacturers are responsible for over 80% of the revenues of the Windows Client Division, and concomitantly for the largest volumes of sales of the new Windows operating systems.
A very accurate prediction is that Windows Vista adoption will only accelerate after June 30, 2008, when XP is no longer available through retail and OEM channels. With only Vista preloaded on new machines, there is nowhere to go but up for the latest Windows client. Still, even at over 10 million new licenses a month, Vista will remain far from the dominant OS on the market, Windows XP.
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