Microsoft has sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses, a sales bump of 20 million units since late November when Windows 8 hit 40 million licenses sold. Microsoft?s sales number includes upgrades and sales to its manufacturing partners since it introduced the new touch-centric operating system 10 weeks ago, the company said at an event during CES Tuesday. Microsoft says the sales trajectory is similar to Windows 7. Microsoft in 2010 called Windows 7 the fastest-selling operating system in history after it sold more than 60 million licenses within the first 74 days of sales.
While the Windows 8 sales numbers sound impressive, it's not clear whether Windows 8 licensing sales are translating into computer and tablet purchases at computer shops and big box stores across the country. Except for the Surface tablet, Microsoft's sales include licensing deals with computer manufacturers. Microsoft, for example, will sell Windows 8 licenses to Samsung that the computer maker installs on devices like the Samsung Ativ PC, and those licenses count as sales for Microsoft. The same goes for licensing sales to Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and every other computer manufacturer. It's then up to those companies, with some marketing support from Microsoft, to get new Windows 8 devices in the hands of customers.
And that may not be happening quite yet. Windows 8 did little to boost holiday sales for notebooks, according to market research firm NPD, which tracks point-of-sale transactions across the U.S. In November, NPD also noted that Windows 8 was not boosting PC sales overall. Other critics are also arguing that Windows 8 is off to a slow start, and some reports claim that internally Microsoft is disappointed about the adoption rate of Windows 8 thus far.
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