Vista Sells Past Expectations

January 15th, 2007: Talk surrounding Windows Vista’s debut for business users in November 2006 suggested that it would only be the bravest early adopters than picked up Microsoft’s new OS and readied it for immediate deployment. Contrary to this, analysts have noted that Vista sales have beaten predictions.

The NDP group says that sales for Vista have outpaced those recorded for the first month of Windows 2000. While it is still lagging behind Windows XP’s initial launch, this is also expected to reverse when the Vista marketing juggernaut clicks into gear for the consumer launch this month.

Taken from U.S. licenses sold indirectly to businesses through resellers, the results also suggest that larger organisations, not smaller businesses, are shelling out for Vista according to Chris Swenson, an analyst at the NPD Group.

“I think these results could be classified as 'strong', or at least 'stronger than expected,'” said Swenson. “Although Vista dollars were slightly lower than XP dollars in its first full month, I consider Microsoft Relevant Products/Services's December results to be very impressive, given the commercial-only 'soft launch' approach that Microsoft took with the OS.”

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