

Windows 8 passes 60 million licenses sold, 100 million store app downloads - simba-hiiipower
http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/01/08/windows-8-60-million-licenses-sold.aspx

======
3825
Without even clicking the link, the first thing I saw from the title that
there are fewer than two app downloads per every license sold. This is an
outrage. Why are the numbers so low?

Without even clicking the link, my guess is that it is because of creative
ways of saying what it means to have "sold" a license. Clearly, Windows 8 has
fewer than 60 million users.

Demand a more concrete number from Microsoft. How many people have a valid
credit card number on file on the Windows 8 App Store? How many apps does an
average user buy? What is the average price of an app on the Windows app
store?

1700 devices certified means nothing to me. Show me the money.

~~~
simba-hiiipower
_Without even clicking the link, my guess is that it is because of creative
ways of saying what it means to have "sold" a license. Clearly, Windows 8 has
fewer than 60 million users._

..yes, that's probably true. clicking the link you'd see that they are pretty
clear in that the 60 million _licenses_ number is just that, licenses they've
sold (consumer upgrades + oem installs). wouldn't really call it _creative_
as, financially, this makes perfect sense from their perspective -- in that
they record revenue at the point of sale (with the majority of sales to OEMs).
as far as I know this is also consistent with how they've always reported
sales, making the numbers comparable with previous launches.

I don't know too much about the dynamics of the industry but I'm guessing
activations likely lag licenses sold by a month or so..

------
Jefff8
'Sold' in this context means 'in the channel', as the article confirms.

It doesn't mean in the hands of consumers. It doesn't mean that cash has
passed to Microsoft since most of those will have been on credit. All it means
is that in an effort to show that Win 8 is not a dog, MS has pushed out 60M
licences to manufacturers and retail outlets.

Not earth shattering. And you can knock off two users from that total: I
bought two laptops over Christmas, yet to boot into Win 8 on either of them.

