Microsoft Confident On Year-Old Vista As Sales Hit 88 Million

Seattle, WA (AHN) - Microsoft is confident users are switching to its year-old Windows Vista operating system, saying sales have hit 88 million while 42 million PCs now have Vista licenses via volume licensing contracts signed by corporate users.

The Vista numbers, based on Microsoft's first fiscal quarter ending Sept. 30, represents nearly a 47 percent increase over the 60 million copies sold that was reported by Microsoft in July, Network World reported.

After five years in development, Vista was shipped to corporate users on Nov. 30 last year.

But a recent survey by King Research, which was funded by systems management vendor Kace, showed that 90 percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half reported they have no plans to do so.

The survey revealed that 44 percent have considered non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux and Macintosh, to avoid Vista.

A recent Forrester report also showed that that 88 percent of companies with 5,000 to 20,000 users have standardized on the XP operating system. Demand for XP is still so strong that users forced Microsoft in September to extend XP's availability another five months.