Microsoft Claims a Billion Windows Installs by End of 2008

eldavojohn writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed yesterday that there will be a billion machines running Windows within a year. 'The install base of Windows computers this coming 12 months will reach 1 billion. If you stop and just think about that, parse that for a second, by the end of our fiscal year '08, there will be more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles, which is at least to me kind of a mind-numbing concept.'"

Quality vs Quantity

[Anonymous Coward]

They are the McDonald's of software

Re:

[Onos]

And, in the applications department, there's really no open source offering that comes remotely close to Visual Studio 2005 and C#, SQL Server 2005, and certainly not even Office 2000, let alone newer versions of Office. Sure, OpenOffice word processing is ok, but the spreadsheet is crap, and the "Access" clone is terrible.

Um Visual Studio 2005 is not a good application. Go take a look at any of the Java based open source IDEs - eclipse/netbeans. VS2005 is missing key features like on the fly compiling. (I had to install a paid plug-in to get that in VS). As for C# I believe you can find Java which is now open source, which works on ANY platform (well almost). C# generally beats Java in local apps while Java beats the crap out of c# server side. SQL Server 2005? Derby and MySQL come to mind as open source. Office is true, t

Re:

[plague3106]

It depends on which version of VS you buy. The Team versions have quite a lot of nice features. On the fly compiling is not a key feature and its usefulness is in doubt. If you really want, try Vb.net, as it does have on the fly compiling.

Java has its own problems; "well almost" doesn't cut it for multiplatform development. C# performs great server side. Derby and MySql don't even hold a candle to Sql Server 2005. Does MySql even have transactions yet? Sql Server 2005 includes .Net integration, come

Re:

[CastrTroy]

And on the fly compiling is terrible in VB.Net if you have really large projects. I wonder if the Java IDEs are faster. I've used them, but never on a large project. I have a PIV 3.0 GHz, and it pauses for about 5 seconds every time I change something at the class level. Wnen the project gets too big, VS.Net becomes unusable.

Re:

[Tony Hoyle]

VS2005 is missing key features like on the fly compiling.

Visual studio has had that since VS2003 and it works really well most of the time (sometimes it decides it can't compile something silly and forces a full recompile, but it works OK).

I've never seen an opensource editor that could do it.. eclipse certainly couldn't last time I tried a few months ago (it didn't even have an integrated debugger which would defeat the point anyway).

Re:

[eebra82]

So according to your claims, Apple is Taco Bell with white walls?

What at egregious insult

[seanadams.com]

to McDonalds. When was the last time you had a Big Mac? It may not be the most nutritious thing in the world, but at least it's TASTY. I have eaten many an XP installer CD, and I can assure you it is neither.

Works both ways

[Aqua_boy17]

Well, I just stuffed an egg McMuffin in my CD drive.

That's not working out so well either.

Re:Works both ways

[norminator]

Well, I just stuffed an egg McMuffin in my CD drive.

That's not working out so well either.

Idiot. That's a coffee cup holder. No wonder you're having problems.

Re:

[siride]

I guess I can agree with most of what you say, but I am puzzled by this statement:

d) There's still nothing in Unix that has the same handy role as a Graphics Device Context.

X does have Graphics Contexts and toolkits obviously build upon those as they see fit. It's a pretty standard part of a GUI these days, anyways. Perhaps you are annoyed that in X, the graphics context does exactly what it's supposed to...store graphics contextual information, rather than be a catch-all way to do graphics operations. O

Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS

[tjstork]

What I was talking about though, was that a DC in Windows is device independent. So, in Windows you can have the same set of code for printing as you do for display rendering. I think that's pretty nifty. And, Windows Metafiles too, were interesting. Had Microsoft been smart, they could have built a browser around a WMF hacked up to have hyperlinks. They had all the pieces in place as early as 1992, but, they just didn't see the application.

Re:

[GiMP]

So, in Windows you can have the same set of code for printing as you do for display rendering. I think that's pretty nifty.

Isn't that what Xprint [mozdev.org] is for?

Re:

[j00r0m4nc3r]

To me, none of those things are the hallmark of a good operating system. MS has coded some nice things into their OS on a higher level, but the underlying OS itself is terrible. OpenGL doesn't make an OS. Remote desktop doesn't make an OS. Good APIs, good scheduling, good timesharing, good fault tolerance, good response, good hardware support (ok, Windows has this at least), good networking, good filesystem, good caching strategy, etc... THOSE are the things that make an OS good. Windows might be a good win

Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS

[plague3106]

Ok, please explain to me, what is wrong with Windows scheduling, timesharing, fault tolerance, response, file system and networking. It seems to provide those very nicely, and any developer can tap into those features as well. Be specific, repeating your statement doesn't make it true.

Re:

[plague3106]

Try to run something that uses 100% CPU and then try to do anything else while that happens. What a great scheduler...

I don't have any problems using 100% CPU; when its doing disk operations though there is a slow down, but you have to expect a program hitting the disk that much will slow up other disk operations.

Also, try to fill up your RAM. Kind of hard, isn't it? Windows doesn't seem to think you have as much RAM as you do and starts to swap far too early to be considered useful. This is why people comp

Re:

[plague3106]

Perhaps they did it because they didn't want a program running to be using a specific version of a component, have it unloaded and the next time it loads its a newer version.

You're doing something wrong if this is hitting you all the time during development. I've been developing on Windows for 10 years now, and have not had this features impede my development. Its also trivial to find which process is using the file in question; its called FileMon.

Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS

[Doctor Crumb]

There's also a lot of bad stuff in windows, which is what is being dismissed. Meanwhile, you are too quick to dismiss linux:

a) but linux has ssh, which is far easier than having to remote desktop in to do most tasks. Forcing users to run a full GUI to copy a file is terrible design.
b) and windows 95 borrowed heavily from Mac OS and OS/2. Vista is borrowing heavily from OSX and Beryl/Compiz. Not an argument.
c) see b) above.
d) the power of X11 comes from a separation between what is being drawn and the hardware involved; remote X11 connections are just an instance of this. GDI is a different way of abstracting that information. Besides, regular users don't care *how* it's being drawn.
e) From it's inception, directX was considered inferiour to openGL by all of the big gaming houses. DirectX's popularity is a product of marketing. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenGL_ and_Direct3D [wikipedia.org] for some background).
f) it is now 2007, and linux is far ahead of windows in hardware discovery, and with a few exceptions doesn't even require you to install drivers (now where's the win98 driver floppy for my printer?).
g) you haven't used adept or any of the other modern package managers, clearly. I can install thousands of packages with just a few clicks (and then walk away to have a coffee), or a single command line if I prefer. Windows still requires manual downloading, inserting CDs, clicking through msis and installshields, manual dependency resolution, manual package updating... Kubuntu has a "new package notifier" in the system tray that will not only tell me what OS components need updating, but also which games/office suites/perl modules/utilities/etc can be updated, and which still gives me complete control over what I want to install.

Your FUD is several years out of date. Please try a modern linux distro and come back with some valid complaints.

Re:

[Maxo-Texas]

I am headed towards linux.

Here is what I want when I finally get there.

I want my three machines to all talk to each other automagically like my windows boxes do so I can easily move stuff around.

I want to be able to view video (I use videolan so it that will be a no brainer).
I want a p2p application that works well (I use azureus- so no brainer tho I hear there is better).
I want an easy to use graphics editor (Gimp isn't cutting it).
I want an easy to use video editor (???)
I want an easy to use office suite

Re:

[jZnat]

Try out a LiveCD of Ubuntu or Kubuntu to see how well your hardware works (which should all work based on what you've said).

For image editting, on Kubuntu (or any KDE-based distribution really), try out Krita which is a lot more similar to Photoshop than Gimp ever will be. There is also cinepaint for an Aperture-like program.

For video editting, there's Kino and Cinelerra (I don't believe this is in the repository, so installing it isn't as easy as tick the box -> install). There is also Avidemux, but t

Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS

[dal20402]

I'd suggest Tuxpaint to you and your like.

This sort of comment is exactly what he's complaining about, and a very good reason for someone without an extensive *x bacground to avoid desktop Linux. You just undid all the goodwill that the previous, very informative reply might have generated.

He isn't a computing n00b. If he wants something comparable to Photoshop, and similarly easy to use, don't smugly point him to a kids' drawing program. Just because a program is arcane and difficult to use (GIMP, although it's *slowly* getting better) doesn't automatically mean it's more powerful. Likewise, just because a user seeks a usable program doesn't mean that user is stupid or doesn't need serious functionality.

Given that Linux users needing support have no alternative but to turn to the community, it's pretty unhelpful when the community is rude and condescending.

You can't have it both ways. Either 1) you want Linux to stay the domain of a few self-satisfied, smug nerds, and accordingly never become important on the desktop, or 2) you need to realize there will be users who are new to Linux but, somehow, nevertheless manage to be smart and competent people.

Re:

[Maxo-Texas]

Actually, if you have over a 10% negative response rate, the result is generally bad. Les Gibson in "How to be People Smart" says you will be perceived as a negative person that people do not want to deal with or be friends with if you are negative more than 10% of the time. People generally like to be around people that are pleasant and agree with them. You have to build up a bit of positive credit before you can let loose with a "No."

It takes a lot of positive, supportive words and deeds to guide peopl

Almost half right...

[Jeff Carr]

a) Yup, I'll give you that.
b) Sure, that's correct, however, I wouldn't say that the start bar is still technically superior to Gnome's or KDE's.
c) Ah, but GDI is no longer hardware accelerated, and WMF is resource hungry for general computing use.
d) Can't speak to this, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
e) Ok, that isn't a statement of something Windows does better. Just a statement of popularity.
f) Closed the gap in hardware discovery? You're stating that Windows was superior 12 years ago.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

"...there's really no open source offering that comes remotely close to...SQL Server 2005"

+5 Funny, anyone?

Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS

[thebdj]

a) Windows XP remote desktop is easier to deal with than X remoting.

I have to respectfully disagree. Not only does remotely using X offer far more flexibility then RDP, I believe it is a better bandwidth user then RDP. It should be noted we shouldn't praise MS for RDP either, their original TS implementation sucked. Citrix licensed their stuff off to MS so MS could make a better product. Look at old TS and compare it with Citrix of that time period, you will see who was the leader.

b) Both KDE and Gnome borrow u/i design heavily from the Windows 95 Start Bar. The concept of COM based shell extensions was looted by KParts.

Ah, but the glory is we are not limited to those two interfaces. WindowMaker, Enlightenment, XFCE, and others offer more ways to use X and in many cases are less overhead then using Gnome or KDE. Not to mention X has allowed you for ages to have multiple desktops, something that was only possible with third party apps for a long time in Windows. You can also heavily customize the UIs to be less Windows like if you want. Besides, isn't the Win 95 Start Bar essentially a rip-off of the Mac Apple?

e) Although I prefer OpenGL for its ease of entry, a lot of big gaming houses seem to prefer DirectX.

Blame MS for this; however, there are plenty of games that will work just fine in Linux. id seems hell bent on continuing to make their games run on Linux. UT2004 worked (and I pray UT3 does as well). Other games using DirectX will work, though some of them can only do so much in Wine and it is somewhat limited to older DX apps. Honestly, if you play that many games you can always dual boot or just stick with Windows. The gaming argument is weak at best.

f) For a long time, Windows lead in hardware discovery. Linux has closed that gap, I think, but in 1995, I was editing config files to get my X to work with my monitor, and Windows would discover both for me automatically.

This is just a poor argument. Tell me how many issues you've had in 2007? I will also say that there is better legacy support in Linux then Windows. I can still find devices that won't install drivers from the base Windows install but can in Linux, even if only well enough for me to get drivers that work well. The gap is practically closed with the largest problem being the quality of some video drivers.

g) It's -STILL- easier to install a new piece of software on Windows. Too easy, the security people will refrain... :-)

Really? Use apt-get or one of the various front-ends available or yum and then tell me this. Both of these do great at handling dependencies and make installations rather painless. Not to mention I do not need to spend hours installing extra software since most of what I need is installed when I install the OS, including IM clients, web browsers (not owned by MS), office applications, etc.

And, in the applications department, there's really no open source offering that comes remotely close to Visual Studio 2005 and C#, SQL Server 2005, and certainly not even Office 2000, let alone newer versions of Office.

Okay. Visual Studio is great if you are building for Windows. How well can you build on other platforms? Not at all. Go figure. KDevelop is actually fairly good and offers most the items that the average developer will probably ever use. Of course, I still prefer writing makefiles and source by hand. I've never been a huge fan of IDEs. As for Office, I must laugh. First, word processing of 2000 compared to either Abiword or OOo is equivalent in all regards. I see no advantage to either, except for the fact that both Abiword and OOo will still be supported long after 2000 is not. I have seen no major issues with Calc compared to Excel and if you are using Access (or Base) for a database, you should really get your head examined. Most database people will tell you that Access is not a good solution for a database and

Re:

[tjstork]

Not only does remotely using X offer far more flexibility then RDP

Where then, in SUSE Linux 10, can I just click on an icon, enter a computer name, and remote desktop in?

Ah, but the glory is we are not limited to those two interfaces.... Not to mention X has allowed you for ages to have multiple desktops, something that was only possible with third party apps for a long time in Windows

Architecturally, Windows has allowed for multiple Window stations and multiple OS personalities since Windows NT. Microsoft

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

... Under Linux I have to start up an SSH connection to another computer, ...

He was speaking about X, not ssh. These are two different protocols, you know. And yes, I also happen to prefer ssh rather than Windows' telnet. It might be slightly more complicated to use, but is (1) way more secure, and (2) way more versatile.

Re:Moderators!

[Tony Hoyle]

Under Linux I have to start up an SSH connection to another computer, enable X forwarding,

Uhh.. what? Why did you have to bring SSH tunneling into it. You could say exactly the same about terminal server.

Under X the simplest is to go to the terminal, select the machine you want to log into and log into it. It's 100% transparent and runs at native speed. This has worked perfectly for 20 years plus. Or you can log in locally and multiple machines on the same desktop just by setting an environment variable (or a script which runs by clicking, which is easier) - and they run exactly as if you'd run them on the local machine again at full speed. Windows just can't do anything like this.

That whole paragraph about figuring stuff out and configuring is just FUD - have you ever even *tried* to use X remotely? 'command line to execute whatever gui you're interested in'? WTF?? Your GUI is already running on your local machine.

X works fine over dialup - it is *designed* to work over slow connections... when it was written that was all they had.

Re:

[compro01]

you can use RDP over even a dial-up connection.

maybe they've improved it since i last tried it (just after SP1), but i did not find it very usable over dial up, even on my good dial up connection (consistent 48kbps with about 200ms latency between me and the other computer). very jumpy cursor and occasional phantom clicks. then again, various flavours of VNC didn't fare that much better, so it was more a problem of not enough bandwidth for the task than a problem with the software.

Re:

[CastrTroy]

Wow, you can use .Net code in the database? While it's a welcome feature, most other databases have supported other languages for stored procedures for a while, and a lot more than just extra. For instance, check out this excerpt from the PostgreSQL [postgresql.org] website. Makes SQL servers capabilities a bit of a joke. PostgreSQL runs stored procedures in more than a dozen programming languages, including Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, C/C++, and its own PL/pgSQL, which is similar to Oracle's PL/SQL. Included with i

Re:

[msuarezalvarez]

I actually didn't know Postgres had that feature.

And yet here you are comparing SQL Server to its competition and declaring it to be `amazing'.

Mind-numbing

[Slider451]

Indeed.

Re:

[TheMeuge]

Billion?

I match your billion, and raise you one gazillion bagillion... and one old laptop running Ubuntu... abandoned where it lay... alongside a keg of beer and a stash of afghan gold.

Something fishy?

[kraemate]

How is this possible? Do that many people even have access to a computer?

Re:Something fishy?

[NuSuey]

i guess they count the illegal copies too .. *smile*

Re:Something fishy?

[aleph taw]

some people have more than 1 computer

Re:

[arth1]

True, some people have more than one PC. But some people also run other operating systems than Windows, even if the PC came with Windows. And quite a few people have Windows licenses for machines that no longer work, no longer are used, or which have been thrown away.

Does Ballmer count licenses to get a high number, or conduct polls to get a true number?
What do you think? :-)

Re:Something fishy?

[Yetihehe]

Does Ballmer count licenses to get a high number, or conduct polls to get a true number?
What do you think? :-)

I think Ballmer counts licenses to get high.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

I have two licenses for XP (one home, one pro), one for NT 4, one for 2K, two for 98 (one came with VirtualPC for Mac, no idea where the other came from) and one for 3.11. I wonder how many of these Microsoft counts. The only one I have installed is Windows XP Pro on my ThinkPad, on a small partition which I use for the occasional old game. 90% of the time the machine is booted into FreeBSD, so I should probably count as 0.1 Windows install, but I suspect Microsoft will count me as at least 4.

Re:

[aadvancedGIR]

1- In developping countries, many people don't own a car either.

2- In large non-US towns, many people who could afford a car prefer not to.

3- There are also work machines (personnaly, I own 2 PC (one for gaming, the other (older) one for multimedia) and work with 3 (my dev PC, a test system and the reference generation system)).

Re:Something fishy?

[arth1]

Also note that he said "running". I highly doubt that claim. :-)

Of course, he could have meant "running" as in "with scissors".

Re:

[Hijacked Public]

Not that this will explain it, but it helps: In manufacturing environments computers are quickly replacing electrical panels as the operator interface for machines.

Where an equipment builder would once have used giant metal panel full of buttons and toggle switches and analog meters as the means to run his product, he now plugs in a computer with an HMI/SCADA package. And these computers are usually running Windows. In the US Rockwell Automation has a good chunk of the market, and RS Views is Windows only.

vm's

[misfit815]

Yeah, he's probably right... if you include all the vm's we run to sandbox stuff...

J

I suspect the figures

[jollyreaper]

Does that include reinstalls?

Re:

[dattaway]

and does it include every CPU and GPU core, toaster, and cell phone?

Re:

[aadvancedGIR]

And the PC sold with XP but running with a Linux or BSD?

If Bill Gates

[infonography]

Had a dollar for everything I've heard that one he'd be as rich as Bill Gates.

The main question

[baudilus]

Are they counting pirated copies?

WarezOv Industries Announces Shared Hosting Initia

[Saint Aardvark]

ST. PETERSBURG - WarezOv Industries announced today a new initiative in partnership with Microsoft that promises to put shared web hosting on every desktop.

"With Microsoft's help, we have brought web hosting services to nearly one billion PCS across the Internet," announced WarezOv CEO dRO0m@t. "Windows allows us the opportunity to bring value-add to the customer."

WarezOv's suite of administration tools allows easy management of all aspects of web hosting, including DNS, mail services and -- most important -- failover. "By tapping into Window's remote API calls, WarezOv's tools can scale web hosting to nearly any degree, and make it easy for the hoster as well," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "This -- and their tool's ease of install -- is what Windows is all about."

Free Software Foundation president and founder Richard M. Stallman was unavailable for comment. "He's talking to Google about building something similar for GNU/Linux," said a source close to Stallman.

Disclaimer

[Luke Dawson]

No chairs were harmed in the making of this press release.

Ob

[edittard]

there will be more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles

To do: Insert joke about crashes.

Re:

[CopaceticOpus]

With a billion installs, I wonder how many PCs are displaying a BSOD at any given moment in time. Perhaps a million or so?

All at one time?

[slashname3]

A billion computers running Windows at one time? How many are in the process of rebooting at any one time?

Does that count as running? :)

Or are they counting the number of copies of Windows they have sold? In that case the actual number of systems running windows today is going to be much less.

Someone needs show their work on these numbers...

Never subtract! Never Surrender!

[conspirator57]

Add number of instance licenses sold
to maximum population estimates of site license holders
to the highest out-of-thin-air web or internally reported estimate of unlicensed instances
add the results of rolling some chicken bones

Repeat until your number sounds psychologically significant.

But all that's ok. McDonalds still has them beat in the meaningless BS accounting department. They gave up at "Billions and Billions Served" though you can occasionally find one with a number in front of the billions. All t

But is Windows is in top 3 OSs even?

[ceeam]

I think that the average household has more Unix systems running for them than Windows. For example - I know for sure that my DVD player and my ADSL modem have Linux running in them. My TV, phones, etc - frankly no idea. Maybe some Unix too, maybe something else. But I heard that this thing runs them most: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_Project [wikipedia.org]

Yeah, desktop is still important but with things like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC [wikipedia.org] gaining momentum I hope Windows will be further sliding into irrelevancy.

Re:

[aadvancedGIR]

That's why I work in embedded real time/driver development: I had not a single day of unemployment in 8 years and worked for a large variety of manufacturers, plus, the job is usualy rather easy once you made the initial effort of knowing your system.

Re:

[ceeam]

Wise you are. I wish I could too. Unfortunately it's a bit tricky freelancing on that market and available employment is somewhat crappy around here.

Re:

[laffer1]

Yes, if we widen what we count as a device, I bet Windows is irrelevant. I only wish we could train users to realize this.

Microsoft can count Windows installs on desktops, virtual machines, PDAs, xbox (and 360) consoles, Sega Dreamcast, smart phones, cash registers and ATM machines, and coffee tables. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Linux is used on countless embedded devices, PS3 systems, desktops and servers.

They you get into BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X systems, iPhones, Apple TVs, iPods, palm and other

Re:

[Schnapple]

Yes, if we widen what we count as a device, I bet Windows is irrelevant.

If you widen the definition enough then Windows, Linux, MacOS and every flavor of UNIX combined have nothing on ITRON [linuxinsider.com] at over 3 billion units.

Re:

[jimicus]

There's a reason they didn't choose windows. A blue screen of death on a plasma TV you left on standby while you're away from home for a while could cause serious burn-in by the time you get back.

more mind-numbing...

[circletimessquare]

"more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles"

soon to be

"more automobiles running Windows in the world, not just PCs" [com.com]

and don't forget boats for that matter: Windows for Warships [theregister.co.uk] (not a joke)

luckily, even though one of microsoft's original software hits in the early 1980s was a flight simulator, this is still a joke [anvari.org]... for now

someone else can find the reality/ joke based depiction of windows running submarines, or spacecraft... or donkey mule carts... (mind numbing complete)

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

and don't forget boats for that matter: Windows for Warships (not a joke)

This "Windows for Warships" link is funnier:
Windows NT Crashes, Leaving U.S.S. Yorktown Dead in the Water [coneslayer.org]
Ha!

Re:

[Miseph]

I wonder if the DOJ could stretch that into a sabotage/terrorism case against "Bil Gaten" and the "Mi Crosoft" terrorist organization? Shit, if we've got to have that awful (un)PATRIOT Act, then we might as well do something constructive with it.

How many PCs have 2 Windows licenses?

[denis-The-menace]

I'm not talking XP and Vista either.

I'm talking when a company buy a PC and has a corporate version of Windows XP (no activation req'd)
That means MS gets:
-one license for the PC leaving the store/reseller
  and
-one when the company buys a corporate license for that PC.

Therefore MS get a 2-for-1 deal, everytime!

Re:

[jimicus]

You should perhaps read the corporate license. It's an "upgrade only" license - you can upgrade PCs to the version of Windows you're licensed for but you still need an OEM license on them in the first place.

Of course, this is a blatant lie in order to prop up Microsoft's sales figures. I present as evidence:

1. The contract states that should you choose to buy this corporate license, you must license enough seats for every PC you own, not just the ones which shipped from the factory with some older versio

Re:

[advocate_one]

and a third when the box gets repurposed on end-of-life and a fresh license is required for the machine when it gets donated to charity.:

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/refurbishers/ [microsoft.com]

I know I can count for at least 50...

[rongage]

Let me see... I had to reinstall Windows 12 times on my son's computer, 8 times on my Wife's computer, 5 times on my computer at work, 15 times on my dad's computer, and so on....

Yeah, I can see how Microsoft can claim 1 billion installs - let's see them filter it out to "unique computers" and see where that number goes.

Why surprised?

[gstoddart]

If you stop and just think about that, parse that for a second, by the end of our fiscal year '08, there will be more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles, which is at least to me kind of a mind-numbing concept

Not sure why that's so mind-numbing. I personally own more computers than I do cars, and I have my laptop from work. Two out of my three machines are Windows.

I'm sure most of us work in environments where computers outnumber people. And, I'm sure the back-room infrastructure of most IT departments consists of a fair number of machines doing various things. (And, any sufficiently large organization is gonna have at least one IT department/location.) Hell, I bet Microsoft and Google combined have several hundred thousand machines if not more.

Now, I have no idea of how they estimated this 1 billion machines, but I don't find it a surprising number at all -- I bet my office of 50 people has well over 100 computers running Windows, and we're one office in a multi-national corporation.

Cheers

Re:Why surprised?

[pogson]

see http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=C0_7_1 [itfacts.biz]

There are lots of PCs out there. I have seen a few '95 and '98 machines still in use (Horrors!).

The aspect that eludes M$ is that of the existing PCs, very few can run Vista. M$ plans to kill off XP next year for new licences, and upgrades of XP soon. Will the world trash hundreds of millions of working PCs, PIII and later? Why would they? The world will find Linux ready to run on them with modern software. It takes a salesman to announce a problem with the M$ empire is an advantage.

Whether it likes it or not, the world will not trash that many working PCs and M$ will have to supply a product for them or drop out. This is not like the good old days when M$ had to persuade folks to shift from 8MHz CPUs to 400MHz CPUs where they could see a real benefit. Nowadays, 3000 MHz CPUs are idling and they want folks to run dual core models that can do 200 frames per second in high resolution to read text.

They're just counting the WGA nags

[Vicegrip]

What they're counting is the number of times WGA pops up to confirm that your copy of Windows is valid.

It's just retarded how many times that fucking thing pops up.... Microsoft wants to double quadruple check or something....

User: "but you already checked!!!" ....

MS: "yes and we're going to check again, bend over please .... you like using the computer you paid for right? We'll fix you good if you don't comply."

Energy savings

[Anne_Nonymous]

Just think of the energy savings [slashdot.org] if they had made it the black screen of death.

I thought they already accomplished this...

[The employee can cho]

They already have 1 billion Windows installations in China, all with the same activation key.

Mind numbing is right

[brennz]

So many support calls!

How many will be pirated?

[jkrise]

I cannot imagine a billion Vista installations within a year.... Even on new PCs in India, the local hardware shop only offers PCs with 256MB RAM, 15" CRT monitor, DVD drives and pirated Windows 2000 - the software is installed gratis, there's no profits for the h/w dealer or Microsoft.

Even a recent crackdown against such dealers only brought negative publicity for Microsoft - as mentioned in the BusinessWeek article. With Vista's h/w requirements much more expensive (twice the h/w price for Win 2K) and num

Windows

[PalmKiller]

Well yea, but they are counting the windows ce (or embedded or whatever they call it this week) devices too. Probably counting the probability of some old windows 95/98/me/NT/XP, etc. Marketing at it best, a billion users can't be wrong must be going through all the companies officers heads right now. Thing is many of those machines may have never ran windows at all, once they left the store they got new life as linux/bsd boxes and the like.

Some Details

[infonography]

Population about 6-7 Billion now. So lets figure that only one in 6 is gullible enough to buy Windows.

To do first line Tech Support they will need at least 250 Million people to answer phones with 'Is the powercord plugged in?" and "Hit Ctrl-alt-delete several times till it reboots" These are the lucky ones they will have jobs for life! [till somebody builds a Linux-based AI to use an Eliza strategy [alicebot.org] to answer calls]

We will also need a crack team of at least 50 Million Linux/Mac Users to mock Window Users fu

Re:

[arth1]

To do first line Tech Support they will need at least 250 Million people to answer phones with 'Is the powercord plugged in?" and "Hit Ctrl-alt-delete several times till it reboots" These are the lucky ones they will have jobs for life!

You've obviously never worked in tech support, or you'd know that You Must Never Say "hit".

"Press control, which is usually at the bottom left of the keyboard, yes that would be left for you, not me, and keep on holding the control key down while you with the same hand press

Obigatory 'The IT Crowd' quote

[Chris Tucker]

[Roy receiving a tech support call, answers after 15 rings with a sigh]
Roy: Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Roy: Well, the button on the side, is it glowing?
Roy: Yeah, you need to turn it on.
Roy: The button turns it on.
Roy: You DO know how a button works, don't you?
Roy: No, not on clothes.

One billion

[Yvanhoe]

One can foul one billion persons one time... and apparently one billion persons 5 or 6 times when you are called Microsoft.

Re:

[AceJohnny]

One can foul one billion persons one time... and apparently one billion persons 5 or 6 times when you are called Microsoft.

You mean "fool".

Dr. Evil?

[d3ac0n]

I'm sorry, but a quote like that just makes me think of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.

Bill Gates: *with pinky curved up to lip* Gentlemen, we will have Windows Vista installed on ONE BEEELLIIION computers by the end of the year!

Steve Ballmer: *wearing an eyepatch due to a ricocheting chair leg accident* But Sir, that's.. that's just...

Bill Gates: Eeevil? *camera zooms in while dramatic music plays*

Is it counting reinstalls?

[jocknerd]

I used to have to reinstall Windows every three months. Those were the days.

More than Apple? Slashdot article says not yet

[objekt]

From TFA

"The software giant announced it sold 60 million copies of Windows Vista this year, more than the entire installed base of Apple,"

From http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/23/184 0206 [slashdot.org]

"According to Net Applications, in June Windows Vista accounted for 4.52% of all systems that browsed the Web, up from January's 0.18%. Vista has grown its usage share each month since its release to consumers Jan. 30, hitting 0.93% in February, 2.04% in March, 3.02% in April and 3.74% in May. Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, meanwhile, accounted for 6.22% in January and hit its high point of 6.46% in May, but it slipped back to 6% in June. If Vista's uptake trend continues, it should pass Mac OS X in Web usage share by the end of August."

Are we to believe all these Vista installs are simply not browsing the web?

more PCs than automobiles

[stormi]

"more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles"

Why is this supposed to be surprising? A lot of people don't have cars.

There are peoples in cities, who have taxis, buses, subways, trains, carpooling, bikes, legs, etc.

There are people in the countryside, farms etc, who may not have need of a car because they walk or use animals on their land.

There are teens and college students everywhere who are likely to have a computer and not yet have a vehicle.

If anything, that car analogy makes the nu

Lots more running Linux

[flyingfsck]

A few years ago, I saw an IBM analysis that estimated more than 1 billion device are running Linux (mostly cell phones and routers).

A billion Windows installations...

[Prototerm]

...and all of them running in a virtual machine on Linux, safely cut off from the rest of the Universe. Three chairs ... I mean cheers ... for Balmer

In other news...

[Sierpinski]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reported today that Microsoft has just sold their 300,000th Windows license!

A billion computers running Windows...

[Dareth]

.... doesn't this just scream for the line:

"And one botnet to rule them all!" ok.. sorry .. couldn't help myself.

kind of mind-numbing?

[rocketjam]

which is at least to me kind of a mind-numbing concept.

A billion computers running Windows. That's beyond kind of mind-numbing. That's extremely mind-numbing.

A bit confusing

[jbeaupre]

Installs or running? A lot of folks are debating what counts as an install. "Running" is a bit suspect as well.

Ultimately it's like trying to whip up excitement about 1 billion infections of herpes. Or do they mean active blisters? Either way, it's still herpes.

Would really listen to a guy...

[Tiger Smile]

...who admits that his mind is numb?

It's as if...

[HangingChad]

It's as if a billion computers all cried out at once in terror and said, "It appears you are being suddenly silenced. Cancel or allow?"

For an estimated total of...

[Analogy Man]

1,000,000,000,000,000 reboots! Is it a zillion after trillions?

Re:

[F-3582]

American billion, I suppose == Rest-of-the-world-milliard. Anything else would REALLY be mind-numbing. Imagine two hundred Windows installs per earth inhabitant...

Re:

[vigmeister]

Shhh! Slashdot is unaware of the long system :)

In all honesty, although milliards make more sense to me that the short system, you need to switch over since most of the world is...

Cheers!

Re:How many zeroes is that?

[Luke Dawson]

A Microsoft billion. They use a similar system to calculate the amount of time remaining when installing a .msi.

Re:

[fbjon]

And probably similar to the Internet seconds in the good old Netscape, longest seconds I ever saw.

Re:How many zeroes is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it up. When I was at primary school in England in the mid-70's, the definition of a billion as 10^12 was already obsolete.

When the British government announces that they've spend a billion on this or squandered a billion on that, everybody knows they mean 10^9. It doesn't occur to anybody younger than eighty that they might mean 10^12.

You might have had a point in 1940. Now you're just being an arse. Hang on, is that you dad?

Re:

[jollyreaper]

Get her to add you as a friend.....you get to see milfy bewbs!!!!

Anyone else think that would make a great Star Wars name? "Hi, I'm the suave smuggler gent Pan-ache and this is my partner, Milfy Bewbs. Are we fast? We made the twelve mile beer run in less than ten."

Re:

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Milfy bewbs are great, but not on somebody with two heads [myspacecdn.com]. Especially if the smaller one looks like Garth from Wayne's World.