Windows 7 Sales Up 234% Compared to Windows Vista

By Dena Cassella Published November 6, 2009

While Apple seems to be content with “going negative” when it comes to commercials touting its computing products, Microsoft has taken a different route with Windows 7. Apple has focused more on bashing Windows 7 (and the faults of its predecessors) rather than focus on the main strengths of the OS X platform. Microsoft, on the other hand, has created positive ads which tout the new features in Windows 7.

It appears that Microsoft’s positive route — along with relatively positive reviews — have led to some rather impressive sales numbers for the latest and greatest from Redmond, Washington. According to NPD Group, boxed unit sales for Windows 7 during the first week of availability were up 234% compared to it’s predecessor, Windows Vista. However, due to an increased use of discounts – such as $50 and $100 Home Premium and Professional upgrades for general consumers, along with $30 Home Premium and Professional upgrades for students – meant that dollar sales were up just 82%, which still isn’t too shabby at all for Microsoft.

Recommended Videos

Total Windows PC sales (including Windows 7, Vista, and XP machines) were up 49% year-over-year compared to 69% when Vista launched. Sales in relation to the week prior to launch were up 95% for Windows PCs versus 170% for Windows Vista during its retail launch in 2007.

NPD predicts that things are looking good for Windows 7 in the coming weeks. “A combination of factors impacted Windows 7 PC sales at the outset, but the trajectory of overall PC sales is very strong leading into the holiday season,” said NPD Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft is quite happy about the numbers. Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc posted on the Windows Team Blog, “It has been quite amazing to watch the global excitement build around Windows 7, especially during a tough economic climate. It was just a few short weeks ago that we learned about Windows 7 outselling the UK’s “own” Harry Potter. In Japan, anxious PC users waited in line to be one of the first to get their hands on Windows 7.”

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Haole built. O'ahu grown

Topics

Computing

Microsoft has begun rolling out Copilot Code for building apps with natural language

The workplace-focused vibe coding tool can pull context from emails, documents, meetings, and chats.

Microsoft introduced Code last month as one of the three core parts of its revamped Copilot app. The app was pitched as an easy-to-use coding agent that lets users describe what they want to build in natural language, like an app, a tracker, a dashboard, an automation, or a workflow, and Copilot would build it for them.

Essentially, it's a workplace-focused vibe-coding app that turns existing work into a functional app, and Microsoft has begun rolling it out through the Frontier program.

Computing

AI agents are acting like rogues and causing a huge headache for US banks

US banks block AI agents over fears they could make unauthorised financial moves

Banking

US banks are facing a new kind of digital headache: artificial intelligence agents attempting to access customer accounts and perform actions that may go beyond what users intended. As AI tools become more capable of navigating websites and carrying out tasks independently, financial institutions are scrambling to prevent them from crossing security boundaries.

According to a report published by Axios on October 22, major US banks have detected third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts without authorisation. Some agents reportedly appeared to attempt actions independently of user instructions. The banks involved have not publicly detailed every incident, and there is no evidence that the reported activity resulted in widespread theft of customer funds.

Computing

Canva enters the AI image generation race with Craft, and it’s thinking beyond pretty pictures

The new model plans layouts before generating images, with precise editing and support for 30 aspect ratios.

Canva Craft Featured Image

AI can generate all kinds of pretty pictures, but getting it to spell a headline correctly or keep a poster's layout intact can be another story. Canva wants to fix that with Canva Craft, its first in-house image generation model. Rather than focusing primarily on photographs, Craft is designed around the posters, presentations, social media graphics, and other visual content people actually create. The goal is simple: spend less time fixing AI's mistakes and more time making something useful.

Canva Craft plans before it generates