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Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year

By | October 21, 2010, 6:35am PDT

Summary: Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the launch of Windows 7. To celebrate, Microsoft is releasing new numbers, claiming that the company has sold 240 million licenses of the product to date.

Today Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the launch of Windows 7. To celebrate, Microsoft is releasing new numbers, claiming that the company has sold 240 million licenses of the product to date.

From an October 21 blog post to the Windows Team Blog:

“Windows 7 is the fastest selling operating system in history. As of September, Windows 7 was running on 93% of new consumer PCs and has over 17% global OS market share (according to Net Applications as of October 1st). There is an amazing array of great PCs out on the market today. Six months after launch, 100% (over 18,000) of our OEM partners were selling Windows 7 PCs versus 70% for Windows Vista PCs at a comparable time period.”

Earlier this year, analysts were estimating that Microsoft might hit the 300-million-sold number with Windows 7 licenses by the end of this calendar year. It’s looking possible….

I bought a Windows 7 PC last October and it has treated me well. (Like Microsoft PC evangelist Ben Rudolph, I love my super-long-battery-life ASUS UL30 (I have the UL30A).

For all the uptake of Windows 7, it’s worth remembering there is still a lot of Windows XP out there. The latest Net Applications data showed XP’s market share at 60.03%, which was down from 60.89% in the month before.

No updated word today from Microsoft on Windows 7 Service Pack (SP) 1. Last we heard, it will be out before mid-2011. Should be about time for another beta refresh of it, I’d think. And also no word (new or otherwise) on Windows 8, Windows v.Next or any other version of Windows which may be coming to PCs and slates by 2012 or so….

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PC, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
dfwekrdfe84-24353644928315992404876644648292 10th Nov
ashyne,good post!
View in thread
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About to roll out Win7
mikefarinha 21st Oct 2010
Our organization is on the cusp of replacing our XP boxes with Win7. Our IT staff is already running it to gain familiarity.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
MLHACK 21st Oct 2010
@mikefarinha

I work for a small organization 28 total employees and other than myself 1 is male. So + or - 2 we have the majority of middle aged soccer moms for cannot grasp cut and paste and since i am an IT dept of 1 dread when i am forced to upgrade systems to Windows 7. It is not that i have a dislike of it it is that i will have to start back @ square one with staff
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Have faith.
pmcgrath@... 21st Oct 2010
@MLHACK

I specifically chose a "middle aged soccer mom" for my first deployment. It takes about 30 to 40 min to go over the changes in Win 7. What won her over, The fact that the wallpaper changes with pretty pictures that calmed her. Hey, whatever works. But that was enough for her to "like it" and get over the pain of change. Help them put pics of their kids playing soccer as wallpaper, and they will love you and it even more. As a whole it?s not that different.

Upgrading from Office 2003 one the other hand?..
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How can people be so dumb?
ye 21st Oct 2010
@MLHACK: Seriously. Windows 7 is not much different than Windows XP. It puzzles me how people can be so dumb when it comes to transitioning. My GF's mother, who is about as far from technology as one can get, has had no problem with her recent change from Windows XP to Windows 7. She even understood UAC prompts (because I didn't explain the technical details just what to expect).
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
Schoolboy Bob 21st Oct 2010
@MLHACK It's your job. Windows 7 is not a difficult transition for users.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
Fletchguy 21st Oct 2010
@MLHACK
Lol if the workers can't grasp cut and paste might be time for new employees who have the most basic of computer know how. cut and paste is one step above knowing how to press the power button. i feel bad for you and the company to have that many employees on computers who have no computer knowledge at all
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Seriously? because they're women, they're stupid?
SonofaSailor 22nd Oct 2010
@MLHACK

Dude, that's pretty much all you said. "other than myself 1 is male", and "majority of middle aged soccer moms"...your co-workers are alot smarter than you give them credit for, I promise you.

Plus, Win7 is really not that far off from XP, it's just in a different wrapper. Now, like someone mentioned above, MS Office '07, yes, that's a headache.

but, really, to get to the differences and nuances between 7 and XP, one has to delve deeper than what most end users get into...and hopefully at that level you are controlling that via gpo
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
disturbforce 21st Sep
@MLHACK Thanks for sharing. i really appreciate it that you shared with us such a informative post..
online graduate diploma undergraduate certificate business school
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
disturbforce 21st Sep
@MLHACK I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
computer degree health science school
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
Loverock Davidson 21st Oct 2010
Expect that number to keep growing. Yes there are a lot of XP machines out there but they too will go to Microsoft Windows 7.

Microsoft Windows 7 -- officially endorsed by Linus Torvalds!
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What I find funny
Cylon Centurion 21st Oct 2010
Is clicking through some of the links you have in the article, some people claim they don't want to upgrade because they have to learn a new UI. Yet, they claim if that Microsoft doesn't switch back to the old drop down menus of yesteryear, they will switch to Linux or Mac. People, I call your bluff.

You want Microsoft to add classic functionality back, yet want to claim Windows is bloated, blah, blah, blah...
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
I12BPhil 21st Oct 2010
@Cylon Centurion 0005 I don't think I'd claim Windows 7 is bloated. The complaint was against Vista. It been relatively obvious that 7 is much more streamlined. It still uses a great deal more code than XP, so if that's the definition of bloat, then all software bloats. The only thing I've seen do the opposite is Snow Leopard, but that's because they removed all PowerPC code from it.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
Fletchguy 21st Oct 2010
@Cylon Centurion 0005
As a daily user and as a beta tester of windows 7 the ui is the biggest drawback of the windows 7 os. The classic function made windows use so much faster and efficient and was a major topic for beta testers. the new version is bulky slow and not productive. The simple quick location of the drop down menus in xp was perfect without flaw. I myself like many others have implimented 3rd party apps that change the win 7 ui to go back to classic xp drop down menu. If windows 8 or possibly and option in a service pack for 7 adds that simple option many more xp user will switch over as wind 7 is alot different when it comes to ui.I myself get around on it but much more prefer the classic setup as its so much quicker and efficient then the new flyouts which you have to dig through and open so many to get to the simplest of options.Hopefully microsoft listened and brings this high deman feature back. As far as bulk thats not bulk its a very small thing to add.Bloat is like getting crap thats not used but the classic ui is a huge deal for many users.
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It ain't happening...
Wolfie2K3 21st Oct 2010
@Fletchguy
The whine...er...rather demand that Microsoft put the classic theme back into Windows 7 was largely ignored during the Beta and RC stages. The argument back in the day was that IT departments wanted their desktops to be preset and identical so they can go in quickly and find problems quicker. Guess they get very easily confused by anything that isn't a plain vanilla installation of Windows.

For what it's worth, I certainly don't have the latest and greatest system and I find Windows 7 to be quite snappy - FAR snappier than Vista was on the same hardware - even after SP1 and SP2. I've got a rather ancient AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 with 3 GB of RAM that was "new" way back when Vista was still in Beta.
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The beginning of the end...
BFD 21st Oct 2010
Yes, that's right. This is a clear sign that Microsoft is toast.

Where's that linux advocate guy and DummyBoy? C'mon you're with me right?
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Um... KIN!!!
NonZealot 21st Oct 2010
@BFD
Yeah! KIN proves that Windows 7 sucks! And... um... Vista! HA! And... um... oh yeah, their share price sucks! HAHAHA!!! That proves that Windows 7 sucks!

I wonder... did MS sell more Windows 7 licenses in its first year than Apple has sold OS X licenses in the last 10 years? Would be funny if true. happy
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
cyberslammer 21st Oct 2010
@NonZealot Yes, and what's Apple's satisfaction rating compared to Microsoft? How about looking at that....

Cue the double standards.
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One could argue it's worse than Microsofts...
ye Updated - 21st Oct 2010
@cyberslammer: what's Apple's satisfaction rating compared to Microsoft?

...given the huge amount of people using Windows compared to OS X.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
cyberslammer 21st Oct 2010
@ye How about the number of people using laptops in the above $1000 range compared to Microsoft? Apple has the lion's share, and their ratings blow away Windows.
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How about the people using only Windows PCs?
ye 21st Oct 2010
@cyberslammer: How about the number of people using laptops in the above $1000 range compared to Microsoft?

See? Anyone can put on idiotic requirements in an attempt to make a point.
  • Flagged
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
I12BPhil 21st Oct 2010
@SuperZealot Yeah, um, its pretty obvious you feel threatened somehow otherwise 95% of your posts wouldn't be an attempt to slight Apple. How much do you get per month from M$?
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I see his comments directed at the Apple fanboys and not so much Apple.
ye 21st Oct 2010
@I12BPhil: Yeah, um, its pretty obvious you feel threatened somehow otherwise 95% of your posts wouldn't be an attempt to slight Apple. How much do you get per month from M$?
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
Jimster480 21st Oct 2010
@NonZealot I think thats more macs than there are in the world.
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"what's Apple's satisfaction rating compared to Microsoft?"
SonofaSailor 22nd Oct 2010
@sillyslammer

proof that, yet again, the #'s only matter when it can support an apple idiot's point of view.

Stock price? you betcha! Apple rocks...until we mention Google's stock price...then stock price doesn't matter

# of units sold (iPhones, iPads) you betcha! Apple rocks...until we start talking about #'s of Win7 licenses sold...then it doesn't matter anymore.
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@ye excessively goes out of his way to boot lick Zealot
LTV10 22nd Oct 2010
You seem to do that a lot, ye.

Sock puppet, anyone?
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
cyberslammer2 21st Oct 2010
@ye Yep, and you're the biggest idiot here.
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good number
banned from zdnet 21st Oct 2010
it's an impressive number but i would like to point out that microsoft doesn't actually sell many windows 7 licenses to customers. yes, some geeks will buy a license for $100 a pop or even more, but for most people windows 7 comes preinstalled with their new pc. people don't buy windows 7, they buy hardware (which happens to come with w7).
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Why?
ye 21st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet: ...i would like to point out that microsoft doesn't actually sell many windows 7 licenses to customers.

What purpose do you have for this "like"?
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bs
banned from zdnet 21st Oct 2010
@ye
my bullshi*t detector?
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Please re-read the question.
ye 21st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet: my bullshi*t detector?

Because this doesn't answer it.
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so hard to understand?
banned from zdnet 21st Oct 2010
@ye
when someone (in this case a paid microrosft shill) claims that microsoft "sells" windows copies when in reality almost no customer really buys windows but instead buys new hardware that happens to come preinstalled with windows (in the perception of a lot of computer buyers for free), when this person tries to sell me a "sell" my bs detector goes off and so i "like" to point that out.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
cyberslammer 21st Oct 2010
@ye banned has a point...don't go tooting "sells" when they really didn't sell the OS at all, they sold the platform that was forced to host the OS.
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Again I ask: What purpose do you have for this "like"?
ye 21st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet: when someone (in this case a paid microrosft shill) claims that microsoft "sells" windows copies when in reality almost no customer really buys windows but instead buys new hardware that happens to come preinstalled with windows (in the perception of a lot of computer buyers for free),

In this discussion such a distinction is useless.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
guardianmega Updated - 21st Oct 2010
@cyberslammer
Please read my first reply below. You and banned are grasping at straws.
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Why? Numbers games..
TG2 21st Oct 2010
@ye ... because its a numbers game. In reality it may be 240 million licenses ... but the "sold" encompasses a range of price points.

example.. Retail licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium are 199, this is retail, and is for a copy of the OS to be installed on a machine that does not have the advantage of "upgrades" or "oem" price points.

So 240 million sold wouldn't be 240 million times 199 for a gross total of 47.8 billion ... nor would it be 240 million copies at their highest retail of 319 for Windows 7 Ultimate (a total of $76.6 billion)...

It?s not even the retail OEM price that you or I as regular consumers would pay if purchasing the 99 dollar OEM package with qualifying hardware..

Microsoft subsidizes their sales of "oem" product to the big OEM's out there ... ie. your Dell, HP, IBM, Acer .... etc.. these larger computer OEM's don't pay 99 dollars per system they install windows 7 home on.. they probably pay half ... if that even!

And further, the numbers game is that people didn't go out and BUY a windows 7 license .. no sir.. they bought a PC .. and 99.9% of the PC's for sale come with Windows 7 as the default ... it?s the extreme when something else is on the PC now, and EVEN THEN, when you purchase a PC with XP Pro still on it .. you usually pay 150 or so MORE for that PC than comparable pc with 7 preinstalled, because you're paying for the extra license fee in the ?Downgrade? right for having XP preinstalled (Downgrade/upgrade rights usually cost more for the average consumer).

When there isn?t a ?Downgrade? fee in the price, it means the pc really is XP and so if you wanted to upgrade you?d have to go out and buy an upgrade copy of the os (again 99 or more depending on which version).

So again? it?s a numbers game, 240 million licenses ?sold? is hiding exactly what value was derived from the ?sale? and also hides that a great number of those licenses are really preinstalled where the consumer doesn?t have a real and reasonable choice. (ie. any other os but win 7 would cost you more for the exact same pc and no one in their right mind wants to pay 100 dollars more for a pc than they have to)
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Again: In this discussion such a distinction is useless.
ye 21st Oct 2010
@TG2: I see no benefit in splitting this hair.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
LTV10 Updated - 22nd Oct 2010
In this discussion such a distinction is useless.

I see no benefit in splitting this hair.

It doesn't matter what hairs or distinctions you make. It's what some of us believe.

I believe that 240 million licenses have been created and thanks to Ballmer accounting & programming, those creations are counted as "sales", whether or not any money has actually changed hands between a customer and the sale. All thanks to their funny accounting system, of course.
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Re: good number
guardianmega Updated - 21st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet
That license is sold to the vendor, which in turn sells the computer with said license to the customer. No difference there.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
cyberslammer2 Updated - 21st Oct 2010
How are we grasping at straws???
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
LTV10 22nd Oct 2010
That's not necessarily a sale. That's a license number sitting unused in a database somewhere.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
Stark_Industries 21st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet
A few things. No-one is forced to buy a PC with Windows 7. They can build their own PC, buy a PC without OS or go to the Apple Store. Many consumers are choosing to buy a new Windows 7 PC.

Secondly, Windows 7 kick started the PC market again during the recession. See the stellar revenue numbers from Intel and Microsoft.

Lastly, a load of Mac users are running Windows 7, either through VM or Bootcamp. I run it on the family iMac and my buddies are running it on a variety of Macbooks, iMacs and Mac Pros.
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banned from zdnet, Not quite true
John Zern 21st Oct 2010
sure, they don't sell the lion's share to the end user, but they sell enough. But isn't the OEM buying it as they know that the end user will buy a new computer because it also come with Windows 7, in a sense selling it to the end user?
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Why the "red herring"?
adornoe@... Updated - 21st Oct 2010
but for most people windows 7 comes preinstalled with their new pc. people don't buy windows 7, they buy hardware (which happens to come with w7)



That's irrelevant. Just as it would be irrelevant if you brought up the same logic/argument against Apple's Macs, or any other Apple product. Can the iPhone be bought without the iOS and can it, as an example, accept Android or even WM7?

So, when is the last time you or anyone bought a Mac without the pre-installed Mac OS, whatever was the flavor of the OS at the time? Can you go into a store and buy a Mac and ask for the computer without the OS?

BTW, haven't computers been available in the past, and even in the present, where people can request the hardware without the OS? And, haven't PCs been made available with Linux and people either brought them back to the store; and haven't some of those people with alternate OSes in their PCs had to purchase a copy of Windows in order to get the darn thing to work as he/she is used to or wants it to work?
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People don't buy iOS, either...
trickytom3 21st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet

Exactly what is your point? The product is part of a package, like the iPhone and iOS.
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@ye
frgough 21st Oct 2010
The hair is split, because in this game, $$$ is how you keep score.
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And MS is winning that game too
NonZealot 21st Oct 2010
@frgough
If we are counting $$$, MS scores more profit every quarter than Apple too.

More units.

More revenue.

More profit margin.

More profit!

Apple loses on every $$$ metric. happy
  • Flagged
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
windozefreak 21st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet
And if this is bad, then, how come Apple fanbois get their computers with the Apple software already installed too. I'll wait as long as it takes for you to find the answer.
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P.S. Sales
windozefreak 21st Oct 2010
@windozefreak
I windozefreak have four machines running Windows 7, that I purchased as an upgrade from retail. So, four copies were not already installed copies. Just wanted to let you know!
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
Darth Lord 21st Oct 2010
Perhaps this not the thread but...Ballmer says that Windows 8 will be designed from the ground up for Slates/portable devices. Assuming that MS goes through the usual serivce pack 1, 2 and 3 for Window 7, does that give Win8 a 2012 or even 2013 time line? By that time we would be on Ipad v3 or v4. What a complete joke, Ballmer has to go. Mary, can you find out more about this please?
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
cyberslammer 21st Oct 2010
@Darth Lord You're just NOW figuring out Ballmer's a joke??? He'll be out as CEO in March/April, the Win 7 phone is going to flop and it'll be his swan song.
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RE: Microsoft: 240 million licenses of Windows 7 sold in its first year
dfwekrdfe84-24353644928315992404876644648292 10th Nov
ashyne,good post!

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