Microsoft has announced that it has sold over 90 million copies of Windows 7 since its launch to manufacturers in July. The operating system, which went on sale to consumers in October, had sold 60 million copies by the end of January.
Peter Klein, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, made the disclosure during a presentation to the Morgan Stanley Media and Telecom Conference on March 2.
Figures from business customers, however, are looking rather less impressive: Mr Klein conceded that the segment has yet to take off, although that can be put down to historically more cautious IT managers in the commercial sector.
The Houses of Parliament has recently decided to update its computers to Windows Vista, because Windows 7 has yet to be fully tested in a “business critical” environment. But Microsoft says that it is seeing more businesses looking to upgrade to Windows 7 than it has previously seen at similar stages in the update cycle.
The arrival of the first service pack for Windows 7 will plug a range of minor bugs and offer a number of improvements, but is likely to be a further spur to businesses. The update is likely to be released sometime this year.
