The numbers quoted by Microsoft include all sales of new PCs that came with Vista preinstalled, as well as people who purchased Vista-ready PCs in December and January that came with free upgrade coupons.

This doesn't sound to me like a lot of people have shelled out hundreds of bucks for Vista in a box to put on their existing PC. It just sounds like people have continued to buy PCs, which constitute about 96% of the market. No big surprise there. As the news reports say, this has not caused a bump in hardware sales. It's just business as usual.

Implications for Apple? Very few, I think.

So you mean to say that more people bought a new computer than in the same period six years ago?

"Wow."

"We like how Vista has established a 'hardware upgrade mindset' among PC users," said ThinkEquity analyst Jonathan Hoopes earlier this month."

Does he expect this new mindset to boost Mac sales? I wonder if this analyst ever saw the latest Apple commecials --
how about the one that says that only PC users need to worry about the "major surgery" of hardware upgrades...

also a 3 million increase from 17m to 20m isn't all that great when you think about how many more PCs there are now from when there were when XP was released

... or am I missing something?
17M units XP in the first two months (60 days).
20M units since Jan 30, which was 56 days ago.
How is that double?

"Given that the PC market has almost doubled since XP launched, Vista sales "probably should be more," said Michael Silver, vice president of research at Gartner, a technology research group.

Silver said 51 million PCs were sold to consumers worldwide in 2002; this year, the research group predicts 96 million consumers will buy a computer.

The analyst also noted that the number of holiday-season upgrades, which actually represents a backlog, rather than new sales since Vista's end-of-January launch, could take some wind out of Microsoft's sails.

Silver estimates PC makers sold between 12 million and 15 million PCs with Windows XP Home Edition over the holidays. While Microsoft wouldn't say how many Vista upgrades were ordered in that time frame, Dell Inc. spokesman Bob Kaufman said about two-thirds of its holiday PC shoppers registered for the upgrade.

"That would say that those (Vista sales) numbers aren't all that great if that includes all that backlog," said Silver.

Shipments of Vista to U.S. retailers in February lagged XP's first-month shipments by about 56 percent, according to the NPD Group, which tracks retail software sales."

In other words, Microsoft are being a little economical with the truth in their press release. I don't think anyone at Apple is 'daunted' just yet.

This also includes people in SMB and Enterprice up adding XP still to thier network. M$ sells then a liecnes for Vista but the client uses XP. I work at a Large VAR and this is how we seel XP now!~

How is the dominant platform people are locked into (or think they are) a benchmark for the underdog's next release?

How is the Win98 base upgrading to XP--which was a MUCH smaller base of users--a benchmark for XP users upgrading to Vista today?

And how are Vista sales a benchmark for Apple's financial success OR the success of the product as something great for users to get their hands on?

Microsoft has really been grasping at straws (rather than truth) lately. Apple was depending on Vist sales "floundering"? I had no idea that was necessary

Shall22's quotes from the AP story hit the nail on the head. If you look a bit inside the numbers, you'll see that Vista sales are actually struggling quite a bit, despite what Microsoft is trumpeting.

It's quite telling that first month Vista shipments are 56% less than where XP was at the same stage. And while 20 million sounds impressive on the surface, when you factor in that 60-75% of those "sales" are via upgrade coupon redemptions for free or heavily discounted copies, that doesn't sound good for Microsoft at all.

If anything, Apple should be encouraged rather than daunted by these numbers.