Microsoft has now sold 400 million licences of Windows 7

By Tom Warren, on 11th Jul 11 5:40 pm with 27 Comments

Windows 7 - 400 million licences

Microsoft revealed on Monday that the company has sold 400 million licences of Windows 7.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer revealed the figure at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles on Monday. Ballmer revealed the figure at the end of his keynote speech to 12,000 Microsoft partners. “Our previous statement of 7 copies of Windows 7 sold a second continues to hold true,” said Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc. “We continue to see excellent momentum for Windows 7.”

As of today, over 20% of Internet-connected PCs worldwide are running Windows 7 according to Microsoft. It was an incredibly successful year for Windows 7 in 2010. Microsoft’s success with Windows 7 began before the product was even widely available. Released in October 2009, the operating system has received praise from consumers, businesses and the media. In November 2009, Windows 7 managed to surpass Apple’s Snow Leopard market share in just two weeks. In early February 2010 it was revealed that Windows 7 had reached 10% market share in just three months.

Windows 7 has also driven an uptake of 64-bit computing. According to ChangeBASE research, conducted with senior IT decision makers, more than 65% of businesses hoped to migrate to Windows 7 within 12 months of its release. Over 50% of those migrating will be choosing the 64-bit route. Microsoft confirmed in July that nearly half of all Windows 7 PCs run 64-bit versions. Forrester Research revealed in November that 1 in 10 PCs within North America and European companies are powered by Windows 7.

Windows 7 celebrated its first birthday after selling over 240 million licenses in the first year of sales. Microsoft revealed in late January that the software maker had shipped over 300 million licenses of Windows 7 which has now jumped to 400 million.

  • rockyou

    If windows 8 has native support on MACs, I am sure a lot of people will not use Mac OS any more.

  • rockyou

    If windows 8 has native support on MACs, I am sure a lot of people will not use Mac OS any more.

  • rockyou

    If windows 8 has native support on MACs, I am sure a lot of people will not use Mac OS any more.

    • Revolutions

      My Automated Car?
      Mostly Available Crap?
      Murderer’s Annoying Crime?

      What does MAC stand for?! I must know.

    • Anonymous

      It stands for Apple co-opted a industry standard name, and so it causes confusion in the marketplace. But don’t worry, the Apple fans will continue to use terms like M$ thinking it is funny, but then have their usual temper-tantrum because somebody capitalized two letters.

      FYI – On a Mac they do not use the name MAC, they had to create the name AirPort.

    • Guest

      Millionaires Apple Created.

    • Anonymous

      Money Aquired from Chump

    • Revolutions

      My Automated Car?
      Mostly Available Crap?
      Murderer’s Annoying Crime?

      What does MAC stand for?! I must know.

    • Revolutions

      My Automated Car?
      Mostly Available Crap?
      Murderer’s Annoying Crime?

      What does MAC stand for?! I must know.

    • Gordon

      I only use windows in VM when I have to… Not many people will leave Mac OS X, maybe for Win 8 but not for an optimized version of Vista aka Win 7

    • rockyou

      I am talking about win 8. By native support, I mean optimized performance and automated driver install.
      VMs are too slow for some CPU intensive works, and PCs are not designed as well as Macs.

    • Anonymous

      Unless Apple opens up EFI so that Windows can work with it, this is pretty much a non-starter, no?

    • rockyou

      Hi,

      Apple is not manufacturing their own component. They buy the components from other companies(Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung) and assemble them. Windows is well known for working with different kinds of hardware. If MS put effort in it, it shouldn’t be a problem for them to get it running perfectly on the Macs without any support from Apple.

    • Anonymous

      All of that has nothing to do with the fact that Apple has a custom interface between the components and the OS (EFI), which is not BIOS and from what I understand is incompatible with UEFI (the two boot-chain technologies supported by windows)

    • Guest

      EFI is a pretty big deal. Without EFI support, you’re pretty much screwed even though the rest of the hardware is standard. And I’m not sure how close to the EFI spec Apple now is. Intel and HP originally developed it. But knowing Apple, theirs is now proprietary.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001990736337 Baka Chan

      Posting on a MAC now, as i’m about to do some work. 

      I have a MAC, and used to run windows on VM. I got sick of it and got my self a Sony. 

      I love my MAC and I also Love W7 PC. But more and more, I’m using my Windows PC.  My only beef with WPC, is that the hardware is not as nice and comes too much bloatware (Sony). I also have WP7, I love it more than the iPhone. 

    • Gordon

      I only use windows in VM when I have to… Not many people will leave Mac OS X, maybe for Win 8 but not for an optimized version of Vista aka Win 7

    • Grannyville7989

      I like to have the best of both worlds on my MacBook Pro :) . I’m really looking forward to Windows 8 coming out. It would be nice to be able to install Windows 8 on my laptop without having to faff around with the separate Boot Camp drivers just so I can get the trackpad, display card, WiFi, etc to work.

      Despite having both, I generally perfer using Windows. But when it comes to programming, I tend to boot into OS X.

      I’ve been disappointed with how Lion works from the preview builds I’ve used.

    • rockyou

      I think what MS should focus on is to gain tighter control over their hardware vendors, like HP and Dell.
      If those hardware vendors are willing to work harder on design, I believe coming up with a better designed PCs is not that difficult. MS just doesn’t want to piss off its best sales men for now. LOL

    • Guest

      Except that HP is busy trying to be Apple, only using Web OS, and Dell is just too effed up to do anything right.

      Apple has no real competition at the high end, unfortunately. 

    • Anonymous

      “Apple has no real competition at the high end”
      The Samsung Series 9 would disagree with you. 

      Don’t forget that Windows 8 ARM will allow PC OEMs to completely rethink notebook design. HP will eventually dump Web OS, because it will realize that the Ballmer mantra of “Developers, Developers, Developers” is easier said than done.

    • jard

      samsung, sony, etc,.. there are many examples of good quality machines.

      Including HP and Dell. XPS Adamo is great.

    • Test1ngi23

      LOL. Sure buddy!

    • Anonymous

      Well…in all fairness…there’s not a lot of people who use MACs now.

  • Anonymous

    Dang. No wonder Ballmer was so bullish on this years revenues and operating profit.

    • Guest

      So bullish that he sold 20% of his entire holdings just before Christmas.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Leo-Maurer/100000471791391 Leo Maurer

    nice