Posted on 04/23/2013 2:18:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
On April 18, Microsoft didn't share the one number many company watchers had been awaiting: An updated count of number of Windows 8 licenses sold.
There was no guarantee the Softies would provide an updated count today, the day it released its Q3 FY2013 earnings. But many of us had been expecting it.
Microsoft officials said they sold more than 40 million copies of Windows 8 the first month it was commercially available.
On January 8, Microsoft officials said the company had sold 60 million licenses of Windows 8 to date. This total included sales of licenses to OEMs, as well as Windows 8 upgrades. It did not include copies of Windows 8 sold via volume-licensing agreements. It may or may not also include Windows RT license numbers. (Microsoft officials declined to comment on that when I asked.)
At the time, Microsoft execs said the 60 million figure was roughly in line with the number of Windows 7 licenses sold during the same period of time after its launch in October 2009.
Windows 8 and Windows RT went on sale on October 26, 2012. Today marks almost six months since Windows 8 launched.
Microsoft sold more than 100 million licenses of Windows 7 in its first six months, company officials said back in June 2010. At that time, they called Windows 7 "the fastest selling operating system in history."
Windows 7 is still the most popular version of Windows in use, with the decade-plus-old Windows XP coming in at number two. According to the latest usage share data from NetMarketshare, Windows 8 currently has 3.17 percent of the desktop operating system share, compared to Vista with 5 percent; XP with 39 percent; and Windows 7 with 45 percent.
What Microsoft did say about Windows 8
The Windows division posted revenues of $5.7 billion for the quarter. After adjusting for the $1.1 billion of revenue related to the Windows Upgrade Offer, the Windows division's revenue was flat. Windows client net income for the third fiscal quarter of 2013 was $3.46 billion, up from $2.98 billion for the same quarter a year ago.
In its 10-Q statement, Microsoft noted that excluding the impact of the Windows Deferral (the Upgrade Offer plus pre-sales, prior to general availability), about 65 percent of the Windows Division comes from copies of Windows purchased by OEMs, which they preinstall on PCs and tablets. The rest of the revenues are from commercial and retail sales of Windows, Surface, PC hardware products and online advertising.
"Revenue from Surface and increased commercial sales of Windows was offset by the impact on revenue of a decline in the x86 PC market," said Microsoft in its 10-Q. "OEM revenue grew 17%, reflecting the revenue related to the Windows Upgrade Offer, offset in part by the impact on revenue of a decline in the x86 PC market."
(Non-OEM revenue -- sales of Surface and Windows sold commercially/at retail -- for the Windows division was up 40 percent, according to Microsoft.)
Microsoft officials attributed Microsoft's quarterly revenues of $20.49 billion and earnings of .72 per share primarily as the result of the strong performance of its other businesses and divisions.
The press-release quote from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: “The bold bets we made on cloud services are paying off as people increasingly choose Microsoft services including Office 365, Windows Azure, Xbox LIVE, and Skype.... While there is still work to do, we are optimistic that the bets we’ve made on Windows devices position us well for the long-term."
On the earnings call, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein reconfirmed Microsoft was working with OEM partners on "small devices powered by Windows." (There's been talk of a possible mini-Surface, which may be a 7-inch or 8-inch device, as well, which Klein didn't mention.) He said these would be out "in the coming months." He also noted new Windows PCs would be available in time for back-to-school and that Intel "Bay Trail" Atom-based devices would be out by year-end.
I'm curious when and if Microsoft provides a new update on number of Window 8 licenses sold. Maybe that will happen at Computex or TechEd North America -- both happening the first week of June this year? In any case, today's silence on this front is ... interesting.
FROM COMPUTER WORLD
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238523/Microsoft_Mum_s_again_the_word_on_Windows_8_sales
EXCERPT:
When Microsoft has highlighted Windows 8 sales before, it said they were roughly in line with Windows 7 at the same point in its sales cycle. The lack of any recent trumpeting of sales suggests that Windows 8 sales now lag behind those of Windows 7 two quarters after its release.
That supposition is matched by recent data, which shows that Windows 8’s usage share badly lags behind Windows 7’s at the same point after its debut in 2009.
During the first quarter, the Windows group recorded revenue of $5.7 billion, or 23% above the same three-month span in 2012. But because $1.1 billion of that was simply shuffled from last year — deferred from the sales of Windows 7 under a free Windows 8 upgrade program — the adjusted revenue of $4.6 billion was the same as last year.
Windows accounted for 28% of the company’s total revenue of $20.5 billion for the quarter, slightly above 2012’s fourth-quarter contribution. Microsoft’s Business division, the part of the firm responsible for Office, was the largest supplier, however, with a 31% share of all revenue.
Microsoft acknowledged that Windows sales had been hit by the slump in PC sales, which IDC last week estimated had contracted by 14% from the year prior. “OEM revenue performance was in line with the underlying x86 PC market, which continues to be challenged as the PC market evolves beyond the traditional PC to touch and mobile devices,” Chris Suh, who heads Microsoft’s investor relations, said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts yesterday.
That Windows managed to remain flat in the face of the drastic fall-off in PC sales — IDC said the quarter’s decline was the largest in nearly 20 years — was impressive.
Everyone I know that has W8 is sorry they bought it.
I am very pleased with Windows 7. Great OS IMO.
However I have no interest in Win 8 at this time, because it’s design does not suit my uses or tastes.
However I don’t want to see Microsoft fail, I use their products, so if in the future they modify 8 so that it is a product that suits my uses and tastes, then I will certainly consider buying it.
Mainly, it has to be -the same- as what I’m used to. I don’t give a damn about change, I like what I like, and if you want my dough, you will have to give me what I like and not what you like.
That’s how it is, Microsoft.
I still use XP at work, all in all I like Win 7 better.
I broke my Win 7 computer and bought a touch screen Win 8 computer. It was frustrating enough to make me spend $300 to get the Win 7 computer fixed.
Since then I have installed a start button on the Win 8 computer and changed all of the file associations to keep the metro from firing up. Those changes have made Win 8 better for me than XP but I still prefer Win 7.
I have to admit that the hardware portion of my Win 8 computer is sweet and I have started using it more than the Win 7 computer despite the software.
Not sorry to have Win 8, it can be be fairly good with some customization.
Due to problems with my Vista computer, I bought a new laptop that had W8 preinstalled. Foolishly I didn’t find a way to downgrade to W7 but instead upgraded 2 other computers on my home network to W8 from Vista to be more compatible. Nightmare ever since. Finally replaced all HDD’s with SSD’s, doubled my RAM, and system is stable for the moment.
In retrospect I should have found an XP or W7 computer.
RE: I don’t want to see Microsoft fail
Merciful heavens — FAIL? NO, no no.
I have staked all of my Software Engineering and Programming career on their Operating Systems, Programming Languages, Database, Servers and Development Environment and am getting too old to start anew if they were to fail...
Loved XP, skipped buying Vista, bought Windows 7 really like it, then bought a laptop with Windows 8. Really, really dislike Windows 8. If I had known it was that bad, would have searched far and wide for a Windows 7 laptop.
Yeah, definitely not looking for them to fail.
I do wish they’d be smarter about product development though, they seem like they be obtuse from time to time.
I’m amused by all the exposure for Windows 8 in TV dramas and cop shows. The scene will show a tech about to explain a clue to the other cops and pull up a screen with Windows 8, which looks like a kiddie computer or something designed for a 3 year old. He then punches a big icon and click/click/zoom throws the image on an 80 inch plasma monitor for all to gawk at in amazement. Captain Microsoft, the Crime Fighter!
Yep. I’ve got one each now of Windows 7 and Windows 8. Anything Windows 8-ish about Windows 8 is useless slop you want to work around (except some of the touch screen is okay), and my all-in-one printer doesn’t have a drive for Windows 8.
Windows 7 is quite good, however.
I'll consider an upgrade to Windows 8 sometime in the future only if they release a service pack update that natively supports an easily configurable alternative desktop-friendly UI, rather than the handheld Metro UI that I think is ludicrous for a desktop computer w/large monitor & mouse instead of touch screen.
Yeah, I know you can go through hard-to-find gyrations or install 3rd party apps on Windows 8 to get a decent desktop UI back again, but it's the principle of the thing. Given that MS has basically said "screw you" to desktop users with their new OS, I say screw you back.
Plus, it IS nice to have actual resizable/stackable windows on an OS called "Windows," vs. full-screen or half-screen only apps w/o windows (i.e., Metro phone/tablet UI) that look like they were designed for kindergartners.
Fedora 18 now - Fedora 19 in a month or so. Works great.
And another thing. I remember the last Microsoft operating system that had a default user interface (UI) that launched all new apps to be full screen with no window frame. It was called "DOS."
Windows 8 does the same thing, yet it is supposed to be an advancement somehow? Yeah the underlying OS itself is, but the UI is highly regressive.
Count me as one. Had XP.
Windows 8 looks like it was designed by children for children.
Even their commercials show it’s designed mainly for play.
With a few tweaks, Win8 would be great. Tweak 1, they need to make the Start screen more of an option for desktop use. Then make the Start button an option on the desktop. Boom, basically you would have a souped up Win 7 with optional Start screen interface.
All you have to do to make windows 8 perfect is install classic shell.
It does all of that.
Takes 2 minutes to install
http://www.classicshell.net/
But I thought that's why they were calling it Windows "8"!
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