XP Still Outsells Vista

HP says that XP might no longer be on sale, but most of its systems still ship with the OS loaded.

Microsoft officially stopped sales of its Windows XP system at the end of last month. But that doesn’t mean sales of computers with XP have ended. In fact, according to an HP executive, XP is on the majority of computers the company sells – and they sell them with a Vista license.

Jane Bradburn, market development manager of commercial notebooks for HP Australia told APC Magazine:

"From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP license. However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business license but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today."

Vnunet points out that under that system, the sale would show up on Microsoft’s books as a Vista sale. This news means that Microsoft’s claim of Vista’s increasing popularity might well be in doubt, although they claim to have sold over 180 million copies of the OS.

But Forrester Research analyst Thomas Mendel says only 8.8% of enterprises have actually adopted Vista.