Windows Installed Base Will Top A Billion By 2008

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While I don’t doubt that Microsoft can hit the magic “billion” number by the end of 2008, it is just hard to wrap your head around those kinds of numbers.

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer seems confident that the company is headed for a fairly big milestone in the near future, telling attendees at the company's analyst day meeting yesterday that he expects the Windows installed base to reach one billion by the end of fiscal year 2008.
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Billion... times that by the software cost and you have yourself a mountian of money.
 
How do they count that number? Activations? Doubt it as that would mean they were all legit copies and considering how bad the piracy in china sounded from that other story...

The original source doesn't load, anyone know how they got a billion?
 
jmackay said:
How do they count that number? Activations? Doubt it as that would mean they were all legit copies and considering how bad the piracy in china sounded from that other story...

The original source doesn't load, anyone know how they got a billion?
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Maybe it's number of non-upgrade copies sold? Although, that would be cheating, since many people buy new computers instead of upgrading Windows.
 
I have to wonder too. For example, I just purchased 300 computers for work. They all come loaded with an assortment of windows, from XP to Vista home/business. I wipe them all and install my 300 Volume licenses. So does MS count them twice since they both have a volume license install and came with a pre-installed copy?
 
"The install base of Windows computers this coming 12 months will reach 1 billion," Ballmer told the group.
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My guess is that they are counting installs over all time, rather than just the current install base.
So it will likely be ALL oem copies (regardless of the fact that many sold to buisnesses get reformated and a new windows copy put on them, so in many cases they will likely be counting twice), and all upgrade and all original. In fact, on a computer that has had win 98 OEM and win ME upgrade and win XP upgrade and Vista upgrade , they are likely counting it as 4 windows copies installed.

And of course most of those numbers are XP.

Of course it could be possible I'm wrong, and that its only current installs, and MS knows because most windows versions phone home in some way.
Computer Industry Almanac claims there were 1.08 billion computers connected to the internet in 2005, so I dont find it beyond belief that by 2008/2009 there will be 1 billion computers running windows.

So I could see it going either way actually.

Here's the actual link to the article:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2163005,00.asp

And the transcript of ballmer's speech:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/speech/FY07/BallmerFAM2007.mspx
 
Yeah, trying to do an estimate of a real-world number for copies currently in use is an interesting thought experiment. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine one billion users around the world, when many parts of the world are still not heavily computerized and the U.S. might have only 100-150 million out of its total population that actively use computers, excluding the very young and the very old.

On the other hand, how many people have two or three computers in their home, plus one each for the adults where they work, plus computer labs at junior's school? Or the library, or area colleges? Then, how many Windows servers are there? Not just the mail and file and web servers at work, but the myriads of rack-hosted servers that maintain web sites and video streaming and on and on?

When you look at it like that, those 100-150 million users in the U.S. might account for 200-300 million active Windows installs. Add in Canada, Latin America, Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia... and of course the Big One that is still just get started, China. One billion doesn't look so far-fetched after all.
 
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