Microsoft says it sold 20 million copies of Vista in first month

Microsoft says it sold 20 million copies of Vista in first month.

Microsoft has announced that it has sold 20 million copies of Windows Vista during its launch month. In comparison, Windows XP sold just 17 million copies in TWO months during its launch window. However analysts have put a downer on these figures by saying that as PC ownership has grown immensely over the years, the number of copies of Vista sold should be greater! "Microsoft Corp. said Monday it sold 20 million consumer copies of the new Windows Vista operating system worldwide in February, but analysts said the data shed little light on the program’s popularity during its first month on the market.

By comparison, Windows XP, Vista’s predecessor, sold 17 million copies in the two months following its 2001 launch, Microsoft said.

”It’s a stronger than expected start,” Bill Mannion, a director of product marketing for Windows, said in an interview.

But given that the personal computer market has nearly doubled since XP launched, Vista sales ”probably should be more,” said Michael Silver, vice president of research at Gartner, a technology research group."