Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc said on Tuesday that after one month of Windows 8's general availability on the market, the new updated OS has sold 40 million licenses. This number is undoubtedly propelled by the insanely cheap price for the upgrade from Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro – a mere $39.99 USD for a limited time.
The news actually arrives by way of Tami Reller who revealed the 40 million milestone with industry and financial analysts, investors and media at the Credit Suisse 2012 Annual Technology Conference on Tuesday. "The journey is just beginning, but I am pleased to announce today that we have sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses so far," she said.
LeBlanc added in his blog that Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 in terms of upgrades – but that's understandably so as previously mentioned. Microsoft built Windows 8 to work on existing Windows 7 PCs, he said, so that upgrading will be super-easy for even the novice user.
LeBlanc also revealed that the Windows Store, which made its grand opening on the Windows 8 platform, supposedly had more apps at launch than any other app store. An undisclosed number of Windows 8 apps have already crossed the $25,000 revenue mark, and developers actually get to keep 80-percent of the revenue apps generate throughout their lifespan.
Still, is upgrading to Windows 8 really that easy? It was for this customer – the only real difficulty was in deciding if the upgrade needed to be on a separate partition so that Windows 7 and all its installed applications would remain untouched, or to upgrade the entire system. The former option was the original choice, but then switching between the two systems grew too annoying so the partition was deleted and Windows 7 was upgraded to Windows 8 Pro. Piece of cake.
As mentioned in previous reports, the biggest setback for consumers is the lack of a Start menu. Despite how the new touchy OS is promoted, the new Modern UI is merely an overlay that can be ignored if needed. Even more, Stardock's $5 Start8 desktop app not only adds the missing Start menu to the desktop, but allows the OS to boot up into the desktop mode. Microsoft seemingly wants consumers to rely on the new interface from here on out, but the popularity of Stardock's app indicates customers aren't too keen on the idea just yet.
Still, the Modern UI overlay provides a unique tablet/smartphone like experience, making it easy for customers to switch between the PC, Windows Phone 8, Xbox Infinity and Windows 8 tablets. To see if your PC can handle Windows 8, use Microsoft's Upgrade Assistant tool here.
