Microsoft revealed at CES that it's sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses.
At the JP Morgan Tech Forum hosted at CES, Windows Chief Financial and Chief Marketing Officer Tammi Reller revealed that Microsoft has sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses since the operating system's launch in October 2012.
However, this number isn't a reflection of the OS's success, or of how many people have adopted Windows 8. Instead, the 60 million figure includes the number of licenses sold, upgrades, and sales to OEMs.
Microsoft's price promotion for Windows 8 upgrades--$39.99, or a mere $14.99 for users who purchased a Windows PC in mid-2012—no doubt helped boost sales.
Though Windows 8's figures are certainly impressive and match Windows 7's (which were around the 60 million mark about two months into its sales), its launch hasn't boosted the PC market. Instead, NPD reports that Windows 8's launch did little to help notebook sales, which has continued to decline.
You clearly have never used it.
I've been using it on my work pc since launch and encounter something that's different between 7 and 8 maybe twice a day. Other than that it boots faster, runs very similarly and the graphs for data movement speeds and the fleshed out task manager are much nicer than the same old same old that have been present since NT.
Microsoft doesn't care much about Windows 8 license/upgrade money. What Microsoft does care about is to get as many people to use (the user interface formerly known as) Metro and Metro apps on as many devices as possible, to gain a foothold into the mobile market. That's the entire reason for Windows 8 being the way it is.
Windows 8 market share is around 2% now, after 2 months, which is an adoption rate slower than that of Vista, and that was with huge upgrade discounts. At the current adoption rate (0.66% gain in December, the busiest shopping month of the year by far), Microsoft will need 2 years to reach 15%, meaning the number of Metro users will be even lower (not everybody who uses Windows 8 spends time in Metro or buys apps). This is not just a failure of Windows 8, it's a debacle of Microsoft's entire (non-Xbox) consumer products strategy - Surface and other RT tablets are not selling, W8 tablets are not selling, Windows Phone is still around 3% market share (same as 12 months ago), they're getting criticized by OEMs and PC sales are projected to continue declining.
Microsoft got spooked by Apple's success with the iPad and they've drawn completely wrong conclusions. What's worse, they're not showing signs of changing course, they're instead hoping to drag their existing Windows user base into their walled garden by simple inertia. It's not going to work with me, I'm using Windows 7 until 2020 or until Microsoft comes to their senses.
I've been using it on my work pc since launch and encounter something that's different between 7 and 8 maybe twice a day. Other than that it boots faster, runs very similarly and the graphs for data movement speeds and the fleshed out task manager are much nicer than the same old same old that have been present since NT.
Microsoft doesn't care much about Windows 8 license/upgrade money. What Microsoft does care about is to get as many people to use (the user interface formerly known as) Metro and Metro apps on as many devices as possible, to gain a foothold into the mobile market. That's the entire reason for Windows 8 being the way it is.
Windows 8 market share is around 2% now, after 2 months, which is an adoption rate slower than that of Vista, and that was with huge upgrade discounts. At the current adoption rate (0.66% gain in December, the busiest shopping month of the year by far), Microsoft will need 2 years to reach 15%, meaning the number of Metro users will be even lower (not everybody who uses Windows 8 spends time in Metro or buys apps). This is not just a failure of Windows 8, it's a debacle of Microsoft's entire (non-Xbox) consumer products strategy - Surface and other RT tablets are not selling, W8 tablets are not selling, Windows Phone is still around 3% market share (same as 12 months ago), they're getting criticized by OEMs and PC sales are projected to continue declining.
Microsoft got spooked by Apple's success with the iPad and they've drawn completely wrong conclusions. What's worse, they're not showing signs of changing course, they're instead hoping to drag their existing Windows user base into their walled garden by simple inertia. It's not going to work with me, I'm using Windows 7 until 2020 or until Microsoft comes to their senses.