Bei dem bisherigen Verkauf von Firmen-Lizenzen liegen die Vista-Zahlen vor den vergleichbaren Windows 2000-Zahlen, aber hinter den XP-Zahlen. Als Grund wird von den Experten u.a. angeführt, dass viele Firmen Vista erst ausgiebig testen werden, bevor es zu einer endgültigen Implementierung kommt.
Bedingt durch den Vista-Erscheinungstermin Ende 2006 erwartet der Konses keine allzugroßen Auswirkungen der Vista-Verkäufe auf die in Kürze erscheinenden Quartalsergebnisse.
UPDATE: Microsoft Vista Sales Strong In First Month
January 12, 2007: 02:13 PM EST
(Updates paragraph four with company comment.)
By Carmen Fleetwood
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) sales for Vista, its new operating system update, during the first month after launch might be better than anticipated, according to one industry analyst.
NPD Group, which tracks point-of-sales and other data from retailers such as Soft Mart, Software Spectrum Inc. and CompuCom Systems Inc. in the U.S., said sales were higher for Vista in the first month than for the Windows 2000 update of its operating system. Vista sales were slightly under the level for Windows XP, which had a strong public relations campaign. The data involves corporate license purchases.
NPD analyst Chris Swenson declined to provide actual figures for unit sales. Microsoft also declined to share specific sales data.
"It's worth noting that even before we made it broadly available for volume license customers on November 30, we already had more than 500 early-adopter businesses," Mike Burk, a Microsoft public relations manager, said in an email response. "Since November 30, we've continued to see solid commercial demand." He added that the company was encouraged by reports such as NPD's and that Microsoft believes "Vista will be the fastest-adopted operating system" the company has ever released.
Vista for businesses hit the marketplace Nov. 30 with a somewhat subdued event at the Nasdaq offices. The consumer launch will happen later this month. Swenson said the little fanfare kept expectations in check for initial sales. Other analysts have said the adoption of Vista in the corporate marketplace might take some time since information technology staffs have to completely test the new software before mass implementation.
Swenson compared the Vista introduction to a movie studio launching a movie in a smaller European country before releasing it to the larger U.S. market.
But "the data suggests that medium and large organizations are buying Vista in a slightly higher proportion to small businesses than those that purchased XP," Swenson said.
Analysts have said that since the launch was relatively late in the recently ended quarter, they didn't expect it to have a big impact on the results scheduled for release later this month.
-By Carmen Fleetwood, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5216