It is Official, Windows 7 is a Success

After a slow start, Windows 7 is officially a big success, and it is finally outselling XP.

It would be easy to say that it was inevitable, but it really wasn’t. After the dismal failure of Vista, Microsoft needed a bona fide hit. After 10 months, it appears that they officially have that with Windows 7.

Microsoft has released its quarterly earnings, and as part of those earnings, Microsoft announced that it has sold over 175 million copies of the operating system, and projections show that as many as 350 million copies may be sold worldwide by the end of the year. Currently, Microsoft is selling roughly 30 million Windows 7 licenses per month.

It is also is important to note that sales of XP are finally beginning to decline, as more and more users are switching over to Windows 7 for personal and business use. Zdnet is reporting Windows 7 accounted for 7.4-percent of all corporate PCs after its first six months, and that number is increasing by about 1.25-percent increase per month. By comparison, Vista plateaued at 12.6-percent of the corporate market after three years.

XP has an end-of-life date of April 2014, when Microsoft will stop its extended support of the operating system. Vista will have mainstream support through April 2012, then receive extended support until April of 2017, while Windows 7 will feature mainstream support until January 2015, and extended support through January 2020.With the support life of XP coming to a close, the sales of Windows 7 in both the home and corporate worlds should begin to increase at an exponential pace.

Currently 70-75-percent of corporations are running XP. If the current rate of Windows 7 adoption continues, the new OS will likely overtake XP in corporate settings by 2011. If the sales increase, which seems likely as more and more people are accepting Windows 7, that date could be significantly shortened.