Vista Sales Estimates Perhaps Not as Dire as Feared
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UPDATED:  This morning, NPD told BetaNews that, after you compensate for a change in tabulation strategies over the past few years, what yesterday looked like a 58.9% decline in first-week retail sales for Windows Vista over Windows XP, might actually even out.
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The announced six-wait wait for Windows Vista's first Service pack isn't likely to harm Microsoft's relationships with its business customers, and may in fact be most upside.
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A status report released yesterday by the director of Microsoft's Security Technology Unit contends that, over the first six months of its shelf life, Windows Vista was proven more secure than its competitors during their first six months, and more secure than Windows XP after its debut, by virtue of the sole fact that fewer Vista vulnerabilities were entered into the National Vulnerability Database.
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Microsoft reported quarterly sales and profit gains that surpassed Wall Streetâs expectations, and delivered an optimistic outlook.
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Quarterly results suggest conditions may not be as grim as initially thought for the cruise company.
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Blog: Revenue from Windows Vista and Office 2007 releases propels the software giant over $50 million for fiscal year.
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Vista's bug count so far is OK with the Windows security manager.
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Despite underwhelming consumers and being&#160;snubbed by enterprises,&#160;Windows Vista&#39;s numbers keep growing, with Microsoft&#160; saying Thursday that it has now shipped 88 million copies of the operating system, almost double the number of copies of XP in the same amount of time at its launch.In late July, Microsoft said it had hit the&#160;60 million shipment mark with Vista.Microsoft had previously said that it had&#160;shipped 20 million copies of Vista&#160;in its first month and 40 million copies of Vista in the first 100 days.Microsoft credited Vista with helping it&#160;beat Wall Street expectations&#160;and raise financial projections for the rest of the year. The company reported revenue of $13.76 billion for the first quarter ended Sept. 30, up 27 percent from the same quarter in 2006.Revenue in its client segment, which includes all consumer versions of Windows, was $4.14 billion, edging out the $4.11 billion in revenue from the Microsoft Business Division where Office is produced.CFO Chris Liddell credited strong sales in emerging markets, due in part to anti-piracy and legalization programs there.Client revenues, however, did not top those of the first calendar quarter this year, when Vista was officially launched. Revenues at that time were $5.32 billion.Three-quarters of the copies sold of Vista were higher-priced &#39;premium&#39; versions, compared to 59 percent of the copies of Windows -- primarily XP -- available a year ago.The 88 million figure mostly includes Vista-installed PCs bought by consumers and small businesses, as well as packaged copies of Vista sold in stores or online.It does exclude the tens of millions of Windows corporate volume licenses. There, many enterprises continue to hold off on deploying Vista, acknowledged CFO Chris Liddell, though he expects them to start deploying it when Vista Service Pack 1&#39;s arrival in the first quarter of next year.Nevertheless, revenue from companies renewing their volume licenses for Windows, which gives them the right to upgrade to Vista, was up 27 percent.Other highlights from the statistics:-- Unit sales of Windows Server&#39;s premium enterprise edition were up 35 percent year-over-year;-- A release candidate for Windows Server 2008 has been downloaded more than one million times in its first month;-- Unit and revenue growth of SQL Server were both up more than 15 percent;-- Halo 3 generated $330 million in revenue;-- Xbox 360 console unit sales increased 90 percent, driven by a price cut in August and Halo 3-related demand;-- Client revenues, including those for Vista, are expected to grow 62-64 percent year-over-year in the current fiscal Q2, or 13-14 percent excluding certain revenue deferrals in the prior year;-- Microsoft Business Division revenues, including those for Office, are expected to grow 15-16 percent in Q2 after normalizing for impact of technology guarantees and pre-shipment deferrals in the prior year;-- A beta version of Office Communications Server has been downloaded 80,000 times;-- There are 10,000 customers in the Customer Technical Preview (CTP) program for PerformancePoint Server, its new business intelligence offering.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Europe's latest shot across Microsoft's bow shouldn't faze investors.
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Microsoft, the world's largest maker of computer software,  reports an 11% rise in  quarterly profit but says sales may disappoint in the current period.
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Currys and PC World owner DSG sees sales rise, but says profits will be hurt by poor sales of Vista-related goods.
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Windows Vista attracted most of the hype, but Office 2007 was the sleeper hit that bolstered Microsoft Corp.'s fiscal fourth-quarter results, despite a hefty charge to cover the cost of repairing defective video game consoles.
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But at nearly $300 billion, it's not a screaming buy.
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A report penned by one of Microsoft's top security experts argues that Windows Vista had fewer known security flaws in its first year of release than other major industry operating systems. On the blogs, skeptics abound.
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It was indeed an astounding quarter for Microsoft, with operating income having grown last quarter at an annual rate of 32%. A big part of that growth is attributable to Windows Vista. But does the fact that customers are adopting it truly signal that customers are embracing it? Yesterday, the company's chief financial executives offered some very revealing data.
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Windows Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, goes on sale to business customers.
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Sales slow, margins contract -- but the price is nice.