Do We Really Know How Windows 7 Sales Are Going?

I have been wondering that since earlier this week, when an article on slashdot asked if anyone really thought that Mr. Ballmer would ever really say that any Microsoft Launch was sub-par.

The article has a point; one that should not be lost on anyone who thinks. Since we are very early on in the life of Windows 7, we really have very little to go on.

Of course, we have the mainstream computer media, but those people wrote that Vista was also stupendous and no one was willing to admit it was a pig for quite some time. I am not calling Windows 7 a pig – not by any stretch. What I am saying is that there are more reasons than the wants of many people which govern the sales figures of any Windows product. The current economy is quite the damper for many, and it will take some time to evaluate whether the deep early discounts were anywhere close to evening that score.

Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system is selling quite well, according to CEO Steve Ballmer. In remarks at a press conference in Tokyo Thursday, Ballmer said that Windows 7’s first 10 days at market have been more successful than those of any of its predecessors.

“We’ve had a great response here in Japan,” Ballmer said. “Certainly we’ve seen initial sales be fantastic. The first ten days were bigger than the first ten days of XP or Vista or any other Windows launch that we have done.”

And indeed that would seem to be the case. According to research outfit NPD, Microsoft (MSFT) sales of Windows 7 in its first few days on the market were more than triple Vista sales for the same length of time.

It is true that deep discounts were offered for the first time in the Windows life cycle, and that too, is what might have made major contributions to the early launch success. After all, I don’t remember any pre-sales of Windows 95. We had stores open up at midnight to sell on that September day, but no sales were actually made online prior to the official release. However, we must also bear in mind, just as with theater ticket sales, dollar sales now are more than ever before. (That has always been something I thought was blatantly unfair – I know in my gut that the very first Star Wars movie, Episode IV, had more butts in seats than any of the other movies in that series, so, in my frame of reference, it was more successful. Besides 1977 dollars were worth a lot more than any that were taken in on any of the other Episodes)

So, rather than let anyone think this is any sort of attack on Windows 7, I’ll simply say that I believe that all signs are good, and that we can observe a very good beginning – but – it may not be the most impressive beginning ever. For that, we will have to wait some time, to get the unvarnished truth.

In the meantime, we have a good product, which might turn into a great product … and because expectations were low, we all avoided seeing the monkeyboy dance!

We can all be thankful for that.

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Just like Racquel, hot, but with thoughts from another time!