Business Bytes
Renee Oricchio

Microsoft In Denial About Vista

 

Bill Gates was the opening keynote address for this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas - perhaps for the last time (I suspect that's the Rolling Stones definition of final tour).

By all accounts, it was less visionary and more about Vista sales. Not exactly a big "Don't cry for me Argentina" Evita-esque exit for Chairman Gates who has a long history of wowing geeks with his "in the futcha" keynotes. I harken back to the days when Comdex was king of the tradeshows and took over Las Vegas for a week in November every year. Gates opening for Comdex was as certain as Frank Sinatra opening for the Sands a generation ago.

But I digress...

Apparantly, by and large, it was mostly Vista talk, Vista sales and ain't Vista wonderful that dominated the Gate's keynote.

Microsoft's big party line right now: Vista has sold 100 million copies over the past year since it's debut, outselling Windows XP's first 12 months back in 2001.

The story behind the spin:

- While Vista has sold 100 million copies worldwide, worldwide more than 250 million PCs have sold. Sooooooooo Microsoft's Vista didn't even capture half of the worldwide Operating System market last year. Ouch!

- Back in 2001, XP sold 89 million copies during it's first year. Worldwide, there were half the PC sales compared to 2007. I'll let you do the math on the percentage factor to be considered.

One last footnote: Is it me? It's just that Microsoft relentless comparisons between Vista sales to its own past product (XP) sounds a bit shrill to me. Meanwhile, there's hardly a peep about Mac doing a quiet creep up in sales with the business set, breaking double digits for the first time ever.

And we won't discuss the "O" word, of course. Open source, that is.

It's a new world, folks, and Redmond (Microsoft's corporate headquarters) is no longer the center of it.


Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio