Windows 8 Sales Hit 60M Since Launch

rudy said:
But I am sure you guys will have all your crazy reasons why nothing I say has any significance but of course you wont have any evidence to back it up. Read the numbers from the article in the OP, read this http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9234006/Windows_8_s_early_uptake_trumps_Vista_s, remember that MS increased their order for surface. lol but its all horse shit to you guys because you don't like 8.
Click to expand...
Hey, lets link to old stale information in hopes no one will notice. :rolleyes: In the month since that article was posted, Windows 8 is now lagging behind Vista. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9235166/Update_Windows_8_s_early_uptake_lags_behind_Vista_s Also, beating Vista is like winning the Special Olympics, you are still losing by a mile to Windows 7.
W5fDg.jpg

As for the Surface, Microsoft cut the number of systems it is ordering. http://www.businessinsider.com/digitimes-microsoft-cut-surface-tablet-orders-in-half-2012-11
 
Disposed said:
Where are you getting this information? Fox news?
Click to expand...

I really don't know what the idiots at Fox News have to do with this. Look anywhere for the numbers. Don't rely on me for that info.

You do bring up a valid point as far as,"Where are you getting this information?". Also valid is ,"Who is releasing this information?" and, "Does the entity releasing this information have anything to gain by selecting which information to release?"

Every quarter I get in bundles from companies in which I have stock. Short of hard numbers, most of the info is nothing more than attempts to blow smoke up my ass to tell me what a wise investment I have made, and how good the company will do in the future and how the current board has my interests at heart. At report time, aside from the hard numbers, is an explanation of what those numbers mean, and why I shouldn't worry about them.

Microsoft only releases numbers that make them look good. That is what they do. It is to be expected. The fact that Microsoft did sell 60 million WIN8 licenses only means that they sold 60 million licenses, nothing more. What was the selling price of those licenses? How many of those licenses are still sitting around in unsold equipment? Who were those licenses sold to (this could be really important)? How many end users/buyers downgraded to WIN7 after buying their computers? The list of questions go on, and each answer effects what the "real" numbers are.

Anyone have any numbers on WIN8 licenses that have actually been activated to date? That number would interest me.
 
punisher said:
I really don't know what the idiots at Fox News have to do with this. Look anywhere for the numbers. Don't rely on me for that info.

You do bring up a valid point as far as,"Where are you getting this information?". Also valid is ,"Who is releasing this information?" and, "Does the entity releasing this information have anything to gain by selecting which information to release?"

Every quarter I get in bundles from companies in which I have stock. Short of hard numbers, most of the info is nothing more than attempts to blow smoke up my ass to tell me what a wise investment I have made, and how good the company will do in the future and how the current board has my interests at heart. At report time, aside from the hard numbers, is an explanation of what those numbers mean, and why I shouldn't worry about them.

Microsoft only releases numbers that make them look good. That is what they do. It is to be expected. The fact that Microsoft did sell 60 million WIN8 licenses only means that they sold 60 million licenses, nothing more. What was the selling price of those licenses? How many of those licenses are still sitting around in unsold equipment? Who were those licenses sold to (this could be really important)? How many end users/buyers downgraded to WIN7 after buying their computers? The list of questions go on, and each answer effects what the "real" numbers are.

Anyone have any numbers on WIN8 licenses that have actually been activated to date? That number would interest me.
Click to expand...

That has absolutely nothing to do with what i asked, but thanks.

What i want to know is where you are getting the information that "retail sales of anything with a Microsoft OS is in the dumps".

In the dumps is ridiculous when PC sales are down a whopping 3.2% from the previous year.

Thats why i asked if you got your info from fox news, because that claim was so hopelessly uninformed and stated as such undeniable fact that its pretty similar.

Yeah all the blogs and news sites are sensationalizing it with absurd headlines but thats what they do.
 
PC sales were down 3.2% year-to-year but Q3 and Q4, the two quarters where Win8 had a chance to make an impact, were actually the worst two quarters of the year. Nor are things looking up for 2013, with most analysts expecting a bigger decline following the trends of Q3 and Q4 last year.

"There's a lack of compelling reasons to upgrade," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst At Maxim Group, who said people are now waiting up to 10 years to replace computers rather than five in the past.
"Increases in performance have been smaller and there are fewer new applications that require more computing horsepower," he said. "In developing markets, the first purchase is not a PC, it's a smartphone, especially in markets where literacy levels are low."
Click to expand...

That's why MS bet the farm on tablets and smartphones and gave the finger to the desktop and enterprise/business users. When devices don't sell MS doesn't sell licenses. Though they sold 60m total, that figure isn't going to get much higher given that OEMs and retailers are having a hell of a time trying to clear stock. Thus the initial sales of licenses might look good - and they're more "meh" than good - the expected sales figures going forward are going to look poor.

They really need WP8 and Win8 tablets to succeed, because that PC crutch they've relied on for decades doesn't look like it's going to hold them up for long.
 
Disposed said:
That has absolutely nothing to do with what i asked, but thanks.

What i want to know is where you are getting the information that "retail sales of anything with a Microsoft OS is in the dumps".

In the dumps is ridiculous when PC sales are down a whopping 3.2% from the previous year.

Thats why i asked if you got your info from fox news, because that claim was so hopelessly uninformed and stated as such undeniable fact that its pretty similar.

Yeah all the blogs and news sites are sensationalizing it with absurd headlines but thats what they do.
Click to expand...
\
OK, let me try this again. It was my fault I did not answer your question directly. My point was that "numbers" are just "numbers". Without context and qualification they are essentially useless. You say 3.2%, I say 5% worldwide. Dell says they lost 20% in sales.

If you campare the hardware sales increases from previous iterations of the previous Microsoft OS introductions what is the difference there? Sales dropped after WIn8 introduction so should numbers reflect the delta between sales increases of previous OSes vs the decrease of the WIN8 "bump"?

I understand you are trying to narrow me down to actual "PC sales". My point is that 3.2% is just a number. I went around and found numbers from 4.6% to 8% sales decreases, and that is the tip of the iceberg. We will be able to argue this a bit more cleanly after the latest quarter reports make their way out.

As far as Microsoft specifically, I tend to think of them as a T-Rex having a nice meal and looking up and wondering, "What is that pretty light in the sky coming towards me?"
 
Actually, that 3.2% decline is larger if you consider that there's a larger population with enough money to buy PCs. For example, in emerging markets - mostly in Asia, some South America - there's a large population buying their first PC yet those numbers weren't enough to make up for that loss. In addition, you'd also have to consider that the population itself is higher and thus there's going to be more potential consumers. When you put these things together, that 3.2% decrease looks quite a bit worse.

This same notion holds true for the licenses as well. When Win7 came out it sold millions and millions of licenses (mostly with devices), and with a larger pool to work from you'd expect Win8 to sell even more yet that's not what happened.

To truly get a good grasp of what the sales figures look like you'd have to compare tablets and smartphones with PC sales as well, because for most people they represent the same thing: something used as a PC is a PC regardless of the form factor and the GFLOPs. So you can start comparing the overall PC landscape - phones + tablets + laptops + desktops - to get a good grip on what's happening. Remember, it wasn't until recently that MS absolutely dominated every single form of computing, but given that "computing" was restricted to laptops, desktops and servers (in all 3 of which they've since lost market share) means quite a bit. Nowadays "computing" is mostly done on non-Microsoft devices and non-MS favored form factors therefore MS is the one playing catch up.

If you consider all forms of PCs then, yes, MS is in big trouble and is selling fewer than some others (Apple, Samsung, iOS/Android).
 
SkribbelKat said:
It takes like no monies to just stick a KVM and monitor/keyboard drawer in a rack, but I guess there are the super high-density systems where rack space matters a lot. With everything being virtualized though, you can just peek in on the UI through the hypervisor.
Click to expand...

A KVM is great, now suppose you need to do something on 10,000 server nodes? You can write some powershell or start logging in... 10,000, 9,999, 9998, ...

Does it make sense for a home OS? Maybe not but you have to realize that win 8 is based off of Server 2012.
 
heatlesssun said:
Of course this number is significant because it's how Microsoft gets paid.
Click to expand...
Sorry, it's not COMPLETELY insignificant, it's just insignificant to reading long term success of an OS. Because it represents numbers of licences sold to OEMs rather than consumers, it can be inflated for a lot of reasons we have no idea about. So while it might give an idea of "how much money MS has made in the first month" (assuming we also know the price which OEMs pay, which I don't think we do), it does not give any idea of "how much MS will make in the long run, how much are consumers accepting it, how successful it is compared to previous OSes, etc".

rudy said:
Oh here you go again, more long explanations, lets see what more statistically insignificant, no evidence or data at all, or some data, ya pretty sure I will take some data over none at all.
Click to expand...
That entirely depends on the data. Sometimes I'd rather have no data at all to stop the crazies jumping on the "look at the numbers!!" bandwagon when they don't even know what the numbers mean or how disconnected the numbers are compared to reality. The further numbers are from something we can actually pin down and the more unknown variables between a useful statement and the data we've been given, the more I don't care if the data exists in the first place.

If all the numbers are telling is how many OEM copies have been sold to the big manufacturers, all it says is how many devices OEMs have on their shelves that they intend to sell over some time period...

...we don't even know what that time period is for OEMs, we don't know what devices they are, we don't know how many W7 licences they are still holding now compared to how many Vista licences they were holding when W7 released, we don't know if those licences include systems that will likely be downgraded to W7 or be wiped and have linux installed, we don't know how much OEMs have paid for W8 licences vs W7 licences, we don't know if OEMs could trade MS old W7 licences for new W8 licences, we don't know what incentives MS might have offered for buying a large volume of licences and if they were comparable to the incentices they offered in W7.

Those are just the points that come to my exhausted and sleep deprived mind right now, I'm sure there's more, but that's why I don't think the numbers are significant and are relatively worthless to us (I'm sure MS has information in house that makes it useful to themselves).
 
I like German chocolate candies because they're not as sweet as American chocolates. They're more...I guess refined than the American kinds, but I don't think either is healthy for your cat. :(
 
SkribbelKat said:
I like German chocolate candies because they're not as sweet as American chocolates. They're more...I guess refined than the American kinds, but I don't think either is healthy for your cat. :(
Click to expand...

Pfft, typical fantail nut drivel. Come back when you have 20 years experience with comets and we can have a meaningful discussion about the value of German chocolate to a cat.
 
Tudz said:
Pfft, typical fantail nut drivel. Come back when you have 20 years experience with comets and we can have a meaningful discussion about the value of German chocolate to a cat.
Click to expand...

Whatever, comet-worshipper. Call me when you're not deaf from the noise that your high-powered filter/pump unit makes. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying the silence of a passively aerated bowl that houses two fantails that have never, ever suffered from a stack overflow, page fault, or kernel panic.
 
To fight the Windows 8...
We must understand the Windows 8.
We can ill afford another Windows 8.
 
gunbust3r said:
A KVM is great, now suppose you need to do something on 10,000 server nodes? You can write some powershell or start logging in... 10,000, 9,999, 9998, ...

Does it make sense for a home OS? Maybe not but you have to realize that win 8 is based off of Server 2012.
Click to expand...


Except you wouldn't use a KVM or power shell you would use a RMM of some sort.
 
gunbust3r said:
A KVM is great, now suppose you need to do something on 10,000 server nodes? You can write some powershell or start logging in... 10,000, 9,999, 9998, ...

Does it make sense for a home OS? Maybe not but you have to realize that win 8 is based off of Server 2012.
Click to expand...

For the few organizations that have one sysad for those 10,000 servers, I think chaos and disarray are probably more useful that a KVM or PowerShell. ;) Either that or they're custom building their headless servers to run a *nix OS. I don't know of many really large enterprises that depend on Microsoft products for that many headless machines.

Oh, and sorry I missed your post earlier, I was worried about the chocolates and then Tudz got me distracted with his Cult of Comet Goldfish. It was more important to talk with him about the many benefits of owning a fantail before thinking about anything else.
 
Tudz said:
As if you know about anything else beyond your fantails.
Click to expand...

I know your pumps make a lot more noise. Besides, I don't see you buying any fantails to try them out before telling everyone else how bad they are.
 
SkribbelKat said:
I know your pumps make a lot more noise. Besides, I don't see you buying any fantails to try them out before telling everyone else how bad they are.
Click to expand...

Pfft, my pumps sound fine. If you had the level of pump experience I have, you'd know that a properly set up pump makes almost no noise. Your fantails are probably dying in the toxicity of the water that you don't know how to properly maintain.
 
Tudz said:
Pfft, my pumps sound fine. If you had the level of pump experience I have, you'd know that a properly set up pump makes almost no noise. Your fantails are probably dying in the toxicity of the water that you don't know how to properly maintain.
Click to expand...

Whatever, my cat drinks out of the fishbowl every day and he seems fine. Besides, I owned a comet-certified pump once and it made the end table where the tank was at vibrate so much that the people in the apartment next door were using their side of the wall it was against as a sex toy. While that has some advantages, I just don't need that kinda noise and I don't care what you say about noise and vibration isolation, you can still hear it running.
 
SkribbelKat said:
Whatever, my cat drinks out of the fishbowl every day and he seems fine. Besides, I owned a comet-certified pump once and it made the end table where the tank was at vibrate so much that the people in the apartment next door were using their side of the wall it was against as a sex toy. While that has some advantages, I just don't need that kinda noise and I don't care what you say about noise and vibration isolation, you can still hear it running.
Click to expand...

You clearly bought the sex pump variant of the comet pump. In this post-fantail world, there's a plethora of devices which comets can be used with, you can't blame the comets for your ignorance in buying the sex pump instead of the quiet pump. If you had 20 years experience with gold fish you would know this. But either way, I'm sure your neighbours were enjoing it.
 
You guys want to see two balding thirty-somethings jack each other off on a forum?
 
SkribbelKat said:
Is it safe for cats?
Click to expand...

Thats it's intent! It's both safe for Humans and Cats and dogs (actual chocolate is poisonous the cats, especially dark chocolate, but cats love the taste of it...same with Ethylene glycol). Carob tastes nice actually, and you can sit gobbling it with your catbeast, and have eating contest which don't involve eating catfood or meat jelly. :D
 
Damnit missed the ontopic bit:

It's a bit like Windows 8 though. It's safe for Tablets and Desktops, but just isn't quite as good as normal chocolate. The reason why it isn't the same is because carob is actually nice.
 
THAT was awesome. I just watched the whole thing.

I really need to try this abyssal pile of crap that is called an operating system. I honestly did not figure it was THAT bad, but I'll have to see for myself. Hopefully it runs in VirtualBox. That might be the first problem I face. :p I know the preview was hard to get to work but maybe it works better now.
 
Red Squirrel said:
THAT was awesome. I just watched the whole thing.

I really need to try this abyssal pile of crap that is called an operating system. I honestly did not figure it was THAT bad, but I'll have to see for myself. Hopefully it runs in VirtualBox. That might be the first problem I face. :p I know the preview was hard to get to work but maybe it works better now.
Click to expand...

It does, that's how I originally found out how retarded it was. :)
 
well fwiw, 1 day into using windows 8 (upgraded from winxp) and no problems so far... I definately don't miss the start menu and the start screen is easy and fast enough to use. all my hardware and previous applications work fine so far..... *shrugs*
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top