The Verdict?

It's official: Windows 7 is a hit, and XP is finally in decline

XP finally fades!

Last year at this time, Microsoft was in the final stages of preparing Windows 7 for its worldwide launch. The new OS was finally available to the public.

Those demanding and skeptical Windows users have now had a full year to stress-test Windows 7 and decide whether it’s good enough to replace Windows XP.

The verdict? Windows 7 has been a quiet success, maybe even a phenomenon. Last spring, a Microsoft executive told me that the company had sold 100 million Windows 7 licenses. As part of its quarterly earnings call in July, Microsoft announced that that number had risen to 175 million, and the company has projected that a total of 350 million Windows 7 licenses will have been sold by the end of this year. That’s a run rate of roughly 30 million copies per month worldwide, and it represents a lot of Windows 7-powered PCs.

Despite the big numbers, Microsoft has been almost eerily silent about its success. I didn’t hear a lot of bragging in advance of the Windows 7 launch, nor has there been much chest-thumping since.

The competition has been muted as well. When was the last time you saw one of Apple’s infamous “Get a Mac” ads? Hint: the last three ads in Apple’s campaign were released on October 23, 2009, the day after Windows 7 was launched to the public. With titles like Broken Promises and PC News, Apple’s marketing executives were hoping for a Vista-style wave of complaints, but they were as disappointed as Windows 7 upgraders were relieved. And then John Hodgman and Justin Long went off to spend more time with their families.

Meanwhile, Windows 7 keeps selling and XP usage is dropping. That’s certainly true at this site, where Windows 7 visitors now outnumber those using Windows XP and Vista usage has plunged in the past year. Here’s a graphic representation of how Windows 7 usage has increased among visitors to this site since its first beta release back in January 2009.

Source [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/its-official-windows-7-is-a-hit-and-xp-is-finally-in-decline/2324]