Microsoft: Initial Global Sales of Vista 'Strong'

Microsoft announced more than 20 million Windows Vista licenses were sold in the opening month of its public launch (Jan. 30 - Feb. 28). This is more than double the pace of Windows XP, which sold 17 million licenses in its first two months. However, Paul Kedrosky of the Infectious Greed blog and Michael Silver, VP of research at Gartner, both note Vista's sales are not as impressive when considering the PC market has almost doubled since XP was launched. In a press release, Microsoft quotes a Dell executive who mentioned a strong consumer preference for the premium version of Vista and says, “Customers' initial experience ... has been quite positive." An HP executive is quoted saying, "We are pleased with the customer acceptance of our Windows Vista offerings ...." Shares of Microsoft gained 0.7% to $28.22 in normal trading yesterday and traded down $0.02 in after-hours activity following its sales update, on volume of nearly 2.4 million.

Sources: Press release, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
Commentary: Parsing the Vista Numbers: Not So Fast, Microsoft • 10 Reasons Why Microsoft's Vista Has Missed The Mark • Ballmer Says Some Analysts' Vista Estimates 'Overly Aggressive' -- Street Reacts
Stocks/ETFs to watch: Microsoft (MSFT). Competitors: Apple (AAPL), Red Hat (RHT). ETFs: Software HOLDRs (SWH), iShares Goldman Sachs Software Index (IGV), Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK)

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