Forty Million is Nothing!

I’ve been busy, but I now have time to write about it: in a bit over one month, Microsoft sold 40,000,000 licenses of Microsoft Windows. That is a little bit above, hmm, nothing.

Obligatory Microsoft link. But, oh wait, there is one important word: licenses. So, when [insert favorite OEM here] called Microsoft and said he wants eg. 10000 OEM licenses for his new PCs. The counter goes up by 10000 the moment Microsoft gets their money for the license, and not when the OEM gets their money for a sold machine.

We have sorted out the OEM thing. But how does this number relate to BOX/Upgrade purchases? Activations or shipments? That is also important. And that is how you go from 10 million to 40 million. without actually selling that many copies.

And now, let’s talk a bit about the NPD. And I mean the US market reasearcher and what they wrote about Windows 8. What did they write, may you ask? 8 (and PCs themselves) did not do well. Great news for sane people! Unfortunately, it was just one month. Including Black Friday, though. And I hope Windows 8 will die horribly. And quickly. Same goes for Microsoft. Because people do not want Modern UI (aka Metro). And Windows tablets. Now go buy an iPad. Or a Mac. Or both. Or a Windows 7 PC. Or a clean PC on which you can install Linux, and preferrably a good distro of it.