Vista sales hit 88 million, up 47% since July

Microsoft Tuesday said sales of Vista have hit 88 million and the company highlighted a number of customer migrations it says signify that users are gearing up to switch to the year-old OS despite recent surveys that say many are taking a cautious approach.

Company officials say the ebb and flow of new contracts and expiring contracts means the overall number of volume licensing copies of Vista doesn’t change dramatically from quarter to quarter.

In addition to the 88 million copies of Vista sold, Microsoft said 42 million PCs now have Vista licenses via volume licensing contracts signed by corporate users. Microsoft used the same 42 million number back in July when it discussed Vista uptake at its annual meeting for financial analysts.

The Vista numbers were tabulated during Microsoft’s first fiscal quarter, which ended Sept. 30. The financial results of that quarter were reported Oct. 25.

The numbers of copies sold represents nearly a 47% increase over the 60 million copies sold that was reported by Microsoft in July.

Vista shipped to corporate users on Nov. 30, 2006, after five years in development.

A recent survey by King Research, which was funded by systems management vendor Kace, showed that 90% of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half reported they have no plans to do so.

The respondents showed concerns that Vista would reduce stability and introduce too much complexity into their environments.

“Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista,” says Diane Hagglund of King Research. “Cost was also cited as a concern by some respondents.”

The report showed the 44% of respondents have considered non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux and Macintosh, to avoid the Vista migration.

Microsoft questioned the King Research results and said other indicators show that Vista adoption is on a historical track compared to previous OS releases.

“Without having looked at the study, it’s hard to know whether or not there’s any selection bias. The Forrester report, other studies and our own internal data show that business adoption is on a normal trajectory for a new OS at this point in its life cycle, and we are seeing positive indicators in the market that more customers are seeing value in Windows Vista and are starting to plan, test or begin their deployments,” Microsoft said in a statement sent to Network World.

A recent Forrester report showed that 52% of respondents have no plans to roll out Vista or don’t know when they might do it. The study shows 11% don’t plan to start a rollout until 2009, and another 6% are waiting until 2010.

The study also shows that 88% of companies with 5,000 to 20,000 users have standardized on XP. In fact, demand for XP is still so strong that users forced Microsoft in September to extend XP’s availability another five months.

Microsoft’s continued optimism over Vista adoption is likely in part fueled by the fact that it plans to ship Vista Service Pack 1 around the end of February 2008.