If you ever wanted to know how many active Outlook.com members there are (400 million), Microsoft has made it easy to find out. Want to know the number of Xbox 360 consoles sold worldwide (76 million)? You can find that, too. If you’re in a Microsoft versus Apple debate, and you’re trying to make your point that Microsoft is indeed the better of the two, the company’s “Microsoft by the Numbers” site, which launched yesterday, is here to help.
The company calls the site “a collection of visual statistics about Microsoft products and services.” Laid out in the typical Windows 8 “Metro” design, the tiles are active, allowing users to click on them and see certain statistics about the company. Not only will you be able to know that as of August 11, over 250 million people have a SkyDrive (whether all of them use it regularly is another question), we also know that about 2.6 million gallons of free beverages are guzzled every year by Microsoft employees (and that the most popular soda selection is Coke Zero).
Although it’s nice that Microsoft is throwing a few “fun” statistics in there (about 554,000 pizza slices are consumed each year by Microsoft employees on campus), we’d much rather see one statistic that isn’t included in the Microsoft by the Numbers site: Surface sales. Sure, the first tile on the top left touts Microsoft’s sale of more than 100 million Windows 8 licensees, but out of 30 statistics on the page, that’s the only mention of anything related to Windows 8.
It’s no secret that Surface sales are awful. After all, Microsoft has been using promotions for the past few months in hopes of getting more of the first-gen products off store shelves (presumably in preparation for a second-gen Surface tablet). But the company still hasn’t unveiled exactly how bad Surface sales are – and it’s certainly not using its new “By the Numbers” site to do so. We find it interesting that Microsoft picks and chooses its best numbers to flaunt, when there are a few specific numbers we’re all waiting to see. Rounding out it’s list of 30 stats with two about pizza and soda is an obvious way to fill the gaps that are missing from Surface Pro and RT sales numbers. We’ll check back with the site when those numbers – be they good or bad – are displayed.
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