Windows 8 is now tantalisingly close, with the last major public milestone before its launch, the Release Preview, being made available to customers last week. But while you may expect Windows 7 sales to have all but collapsed ahead of the launch of its successor, the current-gen OS is actually selling rather nicely for now.
Indeed, as The Verge reports, Microsoft’s Steve Guggenheimer has confirmed at Computex that the company has now sold more than 600 million licences since Windows 7 was launched back in late 2009. News of the latest figure comes just a few months after it was previously announced that MS had sold 525m licences.
Microsoft will surely be enjoying the stability of Windows 7 sales in as it turns its attentions to the new and overhauled products that will be joining its range later this year, with Windows 8 in particularly being seen as a big bet with no guarantee of success. Guggenheimer isn"t worried though: "This is the biggest launch time in Microsoft’s history. In addition to updating Windows client, Windows Server, phone and embedded platforms, there’s a massive wave of software and services coming to market that we think will delight customers.”
After the announcement of exciting new additions to its Xbox entertainment platform at E3 this week, the next major announcement is likely to be that of Windows Phone 8, at a special event on June 20 in San Francisco – and of course, Neowin will be there to cover everything that’s revealed.
With the first sales of Windows 8 devices still months away, Microsoft has now launched a new discounted upgrade scheme, allowing a customer buying a Windows 7 PC to get an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for just $15 once the new OS becomes available.