Microsoft has shipped more than 20 million copies worldwide of Vista, its new operating system (OS), within a month of its release.
This outnumbers the market sales of Vista’s predecessor, XP, which had three million less sales over twice the length of time.
The total number of Vista copies shipped includes the full-packaged product sold to retailers, upgrades and, of course, the OS comes standard with many new PCs and laptops.
Microsoft claims that the high Vista sales “reflect the broad interest in the security and usability enhancements” of this new OS.
Copies of Vista packaged automatically, however, with new hardware from companies such as HP and Dell count for a sizeable section of the overall number shipped.
When Windows XP was released in 2001 only 17 million copies were sold worldwide over a two-month period. According to the Central Statistics Office, however, the number of households in Ireland in 2000 with a computer was 32.5pc.
This is in comparison to 55pc of homes owning a PC or laptop in 2005 with the figure jumping to 59pc in 2006, reflecting a significant increase in the purchase of personal computers and notebooks.
There are currently no figures on what percentage of copies shipped were upgrades or new copies, as chosen by individual consumers.
Reportedly, consumers with older PCs had worries relating to how effectively their computers would be able to run Vista. In December of 2006, hardware analysis firm, iSuppli, claimed that Microsoft’s stated requirements of 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive with 15GB of free space may not be adequate.
Microsoft has a free Vista Upgrade Advisor available for download from its website to check an individual computer’s suitability.
By Marie Boran
