100 Million Vista Licenses v. 2 Million OS X


Microsoft's self-laudatory fiscal Q2 report states that 100 million Windows Vista licenses have been sold. The company is 'pleased with the progress of Vista'.

It neglects to mention, however, that most of these licenses were OEM, supplied with a name-brand PC or thrown in with a white box. This is the lowest-margin end of the market. Although no reliable figures are available, Vista retail home and pro edition sales are widely thought to be disappointing.

By contrast, Apple has sold over 2 million Leopard OS X 10.5 copies. This is certainly only a fraction - or 2% - of MS Vista sales, but Apple's margin on each OS X retail copy is much higher than MS's OEM license.

MS reported over $16 billion in gross revenue for the quarter, although this figure was inflated by the deferral of $1.64 billion of revenue and operating income. Like Apple, MS has given lower guidance for the typically slower March quarter of 2008, with revenue expected to come in around $14.3-14.5 billion.

XBox 360 is a jewel in MS's crown, with a 70% increase on sales in the December 2007 quarter over the previous year-ago quarter.