XP Sales still strong

Now that vista is getting ready for its first service pack, meaning that most people who wait until the first service pack to purchase Microsoft software, the interesting part is that Microsoft is still expecting strong sales in windows XP. Not good for vista, or the confusion surrounding the Operating system with 6 different versions to choose from.

During a conference call with analysts following the earnings results release Thursday afternoon, Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said the company has changed its fiscal year 2008 forecast from an 85/15 split in sales between Vista and XP to a 78/22 split. Windows XP sales will, in other words, be nearly 50 percent higher in the next 12 months than Microsoft had estimated earlier. Source: PCWorld

The idea that XP sales are still strong, with even Dell offering XP on some of their systems rather than a full Vista based choice, it still seems interesting that XP sales are not decreasing, rather they are increasing over time, and the mix of XP to Vista sales have been changed in Microsoft’s official mix of what is going to sell through the end of FY 2008.

What really should be happening is that the good folks at Microsoft should be taking a look at what about XP makes it more preferable than Vista. Going back through and taking a look at the reasons why XP is still being so widely sought out rather than Vista. We have used Vista and it is ok, but until we purchase a new PC there is really no reason for us to upgrade to the New OS. In other words, the cross over was not compelling.

Add to that our Apple Laptop, the only one in the office is being used, and we are starting to fight over it. Once is has been configured to run the way that we want it to run, it is a lot like XP, we just do stuff, and that is what working on a PC is all about, just doing stuff. Our experience with Vista was ok, nothing to get all excited about either. That alone is reason enough to stay on XP or cross over to apple (which we have not fully decided on yet either) when the computers start to fail.