Analyzing Microsoft's Windows Vista sales claims

Is Windows Vista being received as favorably as Microsoft suggests? In a news release yesterday, the company said it sold more than 20 million Windows Vista licenses in the first month of availability, more than twice the initial sales of Windows XP. Microsoft said the numbers reflected "broad interest" in Windows Vista's features.

But as P-I reporter Dan Richman noted in his story this morning, the PC market has grown by a similar rate between then and now. That, by itself, would lead to a natural increase in Windows sales. From the story:

Given that the personal-computer market has nearly doubled since Windows XP launched, Windows Vista sales "probably should be more," said Michael Silver, vice president of research at Gartner, a technology research group. The analyst said 51 million PCs were sold to consumers worldwide in 2002. This year, the research group predicts 96 million consumers will buy a computer.

Meanwhile, Joe Wilcox of Microsoft Watch offers several additional reasons to question Microsoft's claims. He writes: "By my accounting, Vista is actually off to a slower start than Windows XP, using real world comparisons."