Windows 7 Sales are Hot and Just Getting Started

Microsoft reports that it has sold more than 150 million copies of the Windows 7 desktop operating system in the roughly nine months it’s been available–making it the fastest selling OS in history. Windows 7 has more than redeemed Microsoft for the fiasco that was Windows Vista, and it is still just getting started.

Apple impressed the world recently in revealing that it has sold an iPad roughly every two seconds since launch–equating to three million iPads sold in less than three months. That number seems much less impressive compared with Microsoft selling around seven copies of Windows 7 every second–and for three times longer.

Other technologies are also doing well riding on the coattails of Windows 7. The rapid pace of Windows 7 sales has also led to a spike in PC demand, and Windows 7 adoption is also responsible for much of the success of Internet Explorer 8–the number one Web browser with the fastest growth rate.

What is arguably most impressive about the success of Windows 7 is that many businesses haven’t yet taken the leap. Brandon LeBlanc, a Microsoft blogger, noted in a blog post on Wednesday that “between companies actively deploying and evaluating it, approximately 75% of enterprises are looking at Windows 7 for their organization.”

Many organizations follow a practice–whether consciously or subconsciously–not to embrace a new OS until it reaches SP1. The philosophy essentially being that whatever bugs and kinks might be present in the new OS will be discovered and patched by the time Service Pack 1 rolls around. Microsoft recently announced that the beta of Windows 7 SP1 will be available soon, giving even skeptical companies reason to start looking at migrating to Windows 7.

Looking over the past nine months of vulnerabilities and updates from Microsoft offers compelling evidence for making the move to Windows 7 as well. Windows XP is inherently less secure than Windows 7, and many organizations still stuck on Windows XP are also still using Internet Explorer 6–which is essentially an invitation to attackers. Even in situations where both Windows XP and Windows 7 are vulnerable to the same flaw, exploiting it generally has far less severe consequences on the newer, more secure Windows 7 platform.

With many companies still in the planning stages, and ramping up to deploy Windows 7, it seems that Windows 7 sales could remain brisk for some time. The continued success of Windows 7 will also most likely result in the continued success of PC sales, and Internet Explorer 8 market share. We shall see.

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