In a speech to cheering developers, Bill Gates said that over 40 million copies of Windows Vista had been sold.

Whenever I hear about Vista, I either hear yawns or active dislike. So I wonder, did you buy a copy? Did you buy a computer with it preloaded?

40 million seems like a lot of copies, with the US population around 300 million. If all the sales were in the US, then over 10% of the US population would have bought Vista.

But it's been available in the leading markets. US and Europe combine to 700 million and I suspect affluent Asian countries have at least 300 million. (Note that China isn't affluent at present and probably qualifies for Bill's $3 handout plan).

If this is so, then about 4% of Bill's customers worldwide have purchased Vista. That seems more like a base hit than the home run Bill would like it to be.

Obviously Vista is building to be the inevitable success everyone knew it would be, but it certainly has not been a knockout blow to Apple or Linux.

D

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