Categories: PCSoftwareWorkspace

Microsoft Confirms 100m Windows 8 Licence Sales

Microsoft has sold 100 million licenses for Windows 8 in the six months since the touch-enabled operating system arrived in the marketplace.

This is according to Tami Reller, both chief marketing officer and chief financial officer for Microsoft, who revealed the shipment figures in a 7 May Windows blog Q&A. It’s a figure that includes upgrades, as well as copies that ship with PCs and tablets.

Windows U-Turn?

On 8 January the company announced that it had sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses a “similar sales trajectory that we saw with Windows 7,” announced Brandon LeBlanc, a Microsoft spokesman.

Depicting Windows 8 as “a big, ambitious change,” Reller added that the company felt “good about the progress since launch.” She also reported that the platform now included 2,400 Windows 8 and RT devices that were certified to carry the Windows logo.

The software giant signalled that it plans to keep the momentum going with Blue, the code name for Windows 8.1. Reller definitively pointed to a 2013 release of the update by stating that it “will be available later this year.”

“It will provide more options for businesses, and give consumers more options for work and play. The Windows Blue update is also an opportunity for us to respond to the customer feedback that we’ve been closely listening to since the launch of Windows 8 and Windows RT,” said Reller.

The Microsoft executive also indicated that Blue won’t be limited to Windows. She described Blue as a company wide “effort to advance our devices and services for Microsoft.”

Reller reported some progress on the apps front as well, boasting that the company “surpassed 250 million Store apps downloaded in the first six months, and almost 90 percent of our app catalogue has been downloaded every month.” In-house, Microsoft has issued “hundreds of updates to first-party apps,” including Mail, People and Calendar.

SkyDrive and Outlook.com, which offer deep Windows 8 integration, are experiencing brisk adoption. SkyDrive just surpassed the 250 million user mark, said Reller. She also highlighted “400 million active Outlook.com accounts” and more than 700 million active Microsoft accounts.

Going Mobile

On the topic of the cratering PC market, Reller was upbeat. “The PC is very much alive and increasingly mobile,” she said.

Reller asserted that mobile computing didn’t sneak up on Microsoft – Windows 8 was part of the plan. “Windows 8 was built to fully participate in this broader and increasingly mobile device market. The PC part of the market is rapidly evolving to include new convertible devices and amazing new touch laptops, and all-in-ones,” she wrote.

Microsoft appears to be banking on a flood of new, lower-cost Windows 8 devices to help perk up the PC market. “These new PCs are hitting the market now and into the back-to-school season, and they are more affordable than ever,” stated Reller.

Think you know Windows? Try our Windows quiz!

Originally published on eWeek.

Pedro Hernandez

Pedro Hernandez covers Microsoft products and services, such as Office, Windows, Windows Phone, Azure and Skype.

Recent Posts

Ericsson To Cut 1,200 Jobs in Sweden Amid ‘Challenging’ Market

Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson blamed “challenging mobile networks market” and “further volume contraction” for job…

9 mins ago

FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison For $8bn Fraud

Dramatic downfall. Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for masterminding $8bn fraud that…

1 hour ago

Elon Musk Orders FSD Demo For Every Tesla US Sale

Fallout avoidance? Tesla buyers in the US must be shown how to use the FSD…

2 hours ago

Amazon Pumps Another $2.75 Billion Into Anthropic

Amazon completes its $4bn investment into AI firm Anthropic, after providing an additional $2.75bn in…

4 hours ago

The Sustainability of AI

While AI promises unparalleled efficiency, productivity, and innovation, questions regarding its environmental impact loom large.…

6 hours ago

Trump’s Truth Social Makes Successful Market Debut

Shares in Donald Trump’s social media company rose about 16 percent after first day of…

7 hours ago