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reported on Monday that it has sold more than 20 million copies of its new operating system, Windows Vista, during the first month of the software's general availability.

"Windows Vista license sales after one month of availability have already exceeded the total of Windows XP license sales in the earlier product's first two months of availability," Microsoft said in a statement. Windows XP was released in November 2001, and Microsoft said that it sold 17 million copies of that program by the beginning of January 2002.
Bill Veghte, corporate vice president of the Windows Business Group at Microsoft, said that the company is happy with the initial response to Vista. "We are encouraged to see such a positive consumer response to Windows Vista right out of the gate," he said. "While it's very early in the product lifecycle, we are setting a foundation for Windows Vista to become the fastest-adopted version of Windows ever." Microsoft said that the sales figures for Vista include licenses sold to PC manufacturers, the full packaged product sold to retailers, and upgrades ordered through the Windows Vista Express Upgrade program.

'Somewhat Ambiguous'
Roger Kay, the founder and president of Endpoint Technologies, a market-analysis firm, said that he was somewhat surprised by the initial strength of Vista sales. "It's certainly higher than I had originally forecast," Kay said, "so from that perspective I'd say it's a positive development for Microsoft."
However, Kay pointed out, the report by Microsoft doesn't mean that consumers purchased 20 million copies of Vista, but instead that Microsoft has distributed 20 million licenses for its new operating system through all of its distribution channels.
"The overall figures that Microsoft is reporting are somewhat ambiguous," Kay said. "Obviously, if Microsoft's OEMs are ordering [Vista], that's good, since they want to be prepared for demand. The next quarter will reveal the real strength of Vista, however; if consumer PC purchases are slow, then it will take some time for the shipped licenses to work their way through the pipeline."
Vista Hardware Effect
While he agreed that Vista does have a reputation for heavy hardware and memory demands, Kay said he did not think that the new operating system by itself would have much effect on PC purchases.
"A new operating system release rarely drives consumer purchases," Kay said. "When someone needs a new PC, they're going to go out and buy it. And in fact, consumers will find lower PC prices because manufacturers anticipated the increased hardware demands. There's a very healthy supply of components on the market right now." If anything, Kay added, hardware manufacturers -- particularly the makers of memory -- have overprepared for the release of Vista, which might mean that computer prices will rise as existing inventory gets used up.

Sourcehttp://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12300EV3HW80