140 million copies of Vista sold. How does Leopard compare?
Apple has no numbers to compare with the 140 million copies of Vista that Bill Gates says Microsoft (MSFT) has sold since the latest version of Windows started shipping in late 2006. (link)
Literally, no numbers. The last time Apple (AAPL) released a Leopard sales figure was Oct. 30, 2007, when the company said that it had sold more than 2 million copies of Leopard in one long weekend (see here). Apple reported $170 million revenue from Leopard sales in the December ‘07 quarter, but that represents fewer than 1.3 million copies. Apple also sold 2.32 million Macs that quarter, more than 2/3 of which probably had Leopard pre-installed.
Even so, the two operating systems aren’t even playing in the same ballpark when it comes to raw sales.
Of course, Vista was greeted with brickbats and Leopard with raves, but Gates didn’t dwell on that in Tokyo Wednesday, where he gave his Japanese partners an update on how Vista is doing. “That’s a very rapid sales rate,” he said.
Not necessarily.
“The most significant number,” says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, “is Apple’s upgrade penetration vs. Microsoft’s. Apple estimated that about 19% of the OS X user base was on Leopard by the end of its launch quarter. By my math, Vista is used by about 12%-14% of the Windows user base more than a year after its retail launch.”
“here’s a question, how many of those 140 million copies are actually in use?”
Four — counting Ed Bott.
Apple estimated that about 19% of the OS X user base was on Leopard by the end of its launch quarter.
one last thought today and a heads up for Mr Munster Leopard will not run on a mac with less than an 850 megahertz processor users (and there are lots ) with older macs CAN’T upgrade I have 3 macs running Leopard and an old dual 450 running tiger. 2 are intel macs and on some jobs the motorola 850 processor burns through them faster than the intel chips. You can’t fairly use Percentages of the user base to tell you anything about the success of the popularity of the os. if anything i will have to spring for a new mac this Xmas for my poor kid poking along in tiger on the 450 (ie: the really great OS upgrade is driving the hardware sales)
here’s a question, how many of those 140 million copies are actually in use? I know LOTS of folks companies that would probably qualify as a ’sale’ and are NOT using the new OS. Can’t say I know anyone who is using Leopard in a test environment to see what’s broken.
How the heck can you get more secure than leopard? the only way to hack it would be for the user to allow remote control and to uncheck all of the default security settings
your hacker conference set you up. any security breeches on the mac have been discovered by eggheads in the college computer labs and apple gets the fixes out there before the damage is done.
the separation of the resource and data forks in the mac is the reason it can not be hacked (you can’t hide a malicious piece of code in a document data is not acted upon by the system “toolbox” 
Windows and vista have to search the entire command line for snippets of executable code and catch the horse once he is out of the barn. one .exe in the text and your in deep doo doo. to screw up a pc you have to work ON it to mess up a mac you have to work AT it!
heres an idea for you pc guys hold a Mac hackers convention prebook about 1000 rooms you will clean up ! …(not)
NUMBERS ARE NICE, BUT HAS ANYONE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT THE NUMBER OF VISTA OR XP SALES MADE BY INTEL APPLE USERS? I FOR ONE, BOUGHT XP FOR MY NEW MACBOOK.
What about the copies of Vista that are shoved down the throats of computer consumers. I bought a ThinkPad T61 few months ago an it had Vista installed. I had no choice!!! That copy of Vista was sold and counted, but the fact that I did not want to use it remained unknown obviously! In fact no one even cared that I did not want to be forced to pay for Vista! That is disgusting…
I don’t care if Apple has only sold 1 copy of OS X…just as long as I was the one who got it.
I’m in IT and purchased a new notebook about 6 months ago with Vista pre-installed. From the rep Vista’s had I was going to just wipe my HDD and install XP, but I figured I’d give it an honest try. In my experience, the flack Vista’s been getting is absolutely not justified. Yes, it’s a memory and power hog, but XP uses more than ‘98 - it comes with the territory. It has never crashed once, has proven more secure than Leopard at a recent hacker conference, and I’ve had exactly one app I had installed on my previous XP machine that wouldn’t run on Vista. I’m not hear to bash Leopard - it’s great too, and to each their own. But the overwhelming negativity surrounding Vista just isn’t justified from the experience of myself and other people in the field I’m around regularly.
Bill Gates is responsible, with his latest fiasco - Vista - for the epidemic of insanity that is sweeping the planet ! Why would anyone with any of what’s known about the retardedness of Vista, decide to buy (!) and install this bloated monster - And, risk even more frequent Blue-Screens-Of-Death than they already experience from the Jesters of Redmond ?
Check out how many Vista programs were stripped from machines and replaced with XP. I did that with mine and have never been happier!
I have computers running Ubuntu, XP, Vista and OSX and have worked in IT application development for more years that I care to think about, so feel reasonably well qualified to comment.
There is a lot of noise about Vista most of which (fairly) comes from the early days when a lot of drivers weren’t there, it was slow and generally it wasn’t worth the effort.
The situation today is much different. All the patches and upgrades over the last year have resulted in Vista being very stable (my 2 PCs running Vista have never crashed) and much faster than a year ago. If you are buying a new PC having it come with XP really isn’t that sensible. Vista is a nicer user experience, will be supported for longer and is safer overall (especially with parental control included).
If you have an older PC the case for upgrading to Vista is probably not there as it does need a more modern PC.
The other operating systems are also worth looking at. Ubuntu if you have a low spec machine - but only if you are comfortable with getting involved in config. The latest Ubuntu is a simple install but you need some confidence to get it working / fixing things. Not recommended unless you have someone you can call or are experienced.
OSX (all the various flavors) is pretty good for the user who doesnt want to get involved / or is not interested in tweaking the machine. It works and in my experience doesnt break. What is annoying is the almost yearly cycle of $140 upgrades for relatively trivial benefits. There is also the premium attached to Apple and in my experience the poor longevity of Apple products (buying the long term warranty is a must).
So, overall Vista is unfairly maligned. Ubuntu is for tech savy folks who have older machines. Apple for those that like the industrial design and dont mind paying for it.
As for XP, well its nice but I find it quite boring these days compared to the other alternatives. It works but then so does a Toyota Corolla.
“Apple reported $170 million revenue from Leopard sales in the December ‘07 quarter, but that represents fewer than 1.3 million copies.”
Actually, that figure probably represents MORE than 1.3 million copies. I assume he just split 170M with the $129 retail price for Leopard. Most of Apple’s sales are through resellers which of course gets a discount on the software, bringing the average copy down to below $100. Even when figuring the Famiy packs and Leopard Server, you’ll get sales here probably approaching less than $100 per seat for Apple on average, making this figure AT LEAST 1.7M copies
Furthermore: “Apple also sold 2.32 million Macs that quarter, more than 2/3 of which probably had Leopard pre-installed.”
I am not aware of ANY Macintosh computer sold without the operating system. Where the frig is that 1/3 OS-less sales figure coming from?
ex ped: I’ll take your word on the discounts and the assumption that “most” Leopard boxes are sold through resellers. Leopard was only available for two of the three months of that quarter, which is where the “more than 2/3″ came from.
I run a training center with 17 PC. ALL are running Windows XP. ALL of them have “licenses” for Vista, because they were purchased with Vista Licenses. You buy a Dell, it comes with Vista and legally you can wipe the thing and install Windows XP. That is just my training center and not the whole org, where the same thing is happening.
I’d like to know the numbers of how many Vista licenses are actually IN USE, and not just purchased. Buy a Dell and get a free toaster, oh…and Vista.
It has become apparent that the vast majority of sales of Vista are due to copies counted being shipped on new PCs. It is also apparent that a large proportion of these are being wiped and replaced with Windows XP (and a small percentage with Linux).
Of the 7,000 PCs we have on my campus, we turn over a third every year. Every new PC comes with Vista installed which we immediately wipe and then install our Standard Operating Environment image - based on Windows XP of course.
As opposed to all the copies of Vista installed on new PCs, the number of Vista’s retail sales have actually been significantly below that of Windows XP. For example, Vista 1st week sales were 60% below Windows which is unbelievable considering the much larger number of PCs in the world since XP was released 7 years ago:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129125/article.html
Also, in the first 6 months of boxed retail sales, Vista remained 59.7% below the sales achieved by Windows XP:
http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39169293,00.htm
Yes, Vista uptake as a percentage of installed base is the crucial figure to look at and it reveals the magnitude of the shocking failure Vista ha been for Microsoft. No wonder they’ve already started the FUD engines talking up Windows 7 already!
-Mart
Uhm… Joe?
A) Jaguar is what, 5, 6 years old? Come join the rest of us in a current events discussion and furthermore…
B) Apple is the only one who can approve software to run on their machines?
One word for you: Adobe. And for that matter, how do you account for Microsoft Office, which was released first for the Apple, many years ago, before Windows was a pane, uh, pain, uh… aw, forget it.
Get a good book to upgrade your knowledge with. May I suggest “Computers for Dummies”? (And lay down the hack-pipe, that stuff’s bad for you…
“HACKERS HAVE FOUND THEIR WAY THROUGH JAGUAR IN 2 minutes,”
this is bull! no hackers penetrated any mac os x app
Joe’s anger is typical of the poor schmos who have had to put up with interruptions and flipping hourglasses while their anti spy ware and virus software checks everything then downloads a bunch of stuff followed by a few “critical” updates a couple of windows that say “installing this may disable some programs that may or may not be installed in your system proceed… yes” (note the no “no ” button option to this ambiguous statement)
40 minutes later you can type your e-mail reply which will likely be “i can’t open your attachment”
meanwhile we mac users are happily working away in our “bubbles” talking to one another and being the most creative and productive segment of the computing community’ we don’t care how many copies bill gates shoved down the throats of the “commodity” pc makers
who cares if a bank teller or dumb terminal in an insurance company is running windows. macs are making our movies and publishing our newspapers and mixing our music. Joe leave the dark side you will be a happier person
The real important issue is not how many copies of Vista have been sold. How about customer satisfaction? In my office network we have Leopard, XP, and Vista. Leopard is great, XP is reliable, but Vista is a nightmare. We do not have the time to mess with all the problems with Vista, and after nearly a year of using it remain unsatisfied. Leopard took about 15 minutes per machine to get up and running, and has been seamless since. I have a suspicion that many of the champions of Vista in various postings are IT people who are worried about being out of a job if the computer world ran on Leopard. IT costs with XP were about 1-2 hours per machine, Leopard, 0 time, $0, but Vista—can’t afford it!
Least we forget, us Mac folks contribute to the sales of XP & Vista because we can install it on our Macs.
The confusing thing for any analyst is how to count Windows sales. Microsoft has a tendency to count all its enterprise licensees as Vista sales. So my college has an MS campus agreement and could technically upgrade its 700 institutionally owned PC’s to Vista, but there might be 5 Vista PC’s out of those 700. So, is that 5 or 700? How many people downgraded to XP or chucked Vista and installed Linux. Are they counting new units or just retail copies? (I think we know they’re counting EVERYTHING).
The real difference between Vista and Leopard is that Leopard runs decently on laptops and older hardware, so you might actually consider upgrading an older box to Leopard. The other surprise is how many people downgrade new computers to XP.
The apple community likes to think of themselves as the elite upper class. Their products are “better,” and things are great on the Apple side, but lets take a real look at this. ONLY APPLE CAN APPROVE SOFTWARE TO RUN ON THEIR SYSTEMS. THEY LIVE IN A GLASS BUBBLE. HACKERS HAVE FOUND THEIR WAY THROUGH JAGUAR IN 2 minutes, but since their is not financial data on it they don’t care about the rich people who want to be cool by owning a APPLE.
The unanswered question is how many of those Vista boxes were immediately “upgraded” to XP?
Vista’s 12-14% usage for “Windows” user is still probably more than Mac’s 19% “Leopard” users. Why? because the Windows base is just that much bigger.
In mid to late 2009 you will more than likely see SP2 for Vista which, if as good as XP SP2, people will move to it and MS will push back Windows 7 to 2011 or 2012.
What people forget is that it took XP 3 years to catch on and 2 service packs. Released in Q4 of 2001, SP2 late Q3 of 2004.
People didn’t want to leave Windows 2K because they thought XP wasn’t good. Now people don’t want to leave XP because Vista isn’t good.
“Just hang on a sec here. Not everyone who has Vista bought it or wanted to buy it. The machine I got at BestBuy had Vista pre-installed and they wanted $150 to take off and install XP.
So I “bought” Vista without wanting to buy it. People who buy Leopard want to buy it!”
And what the Mac computers come with other than Leopard??!!!! for sure not Tiger or windows!!!!. Every one try to compare the two but the reality that is just a waste of time, Both have advantages and disadvantages. Good Luck with what ever you chose.
What’s that old expression? Millions of flies on a s–t wagon can’t be wrong?MS is all about quantity vs. quality and maintaining the monopoly.
Of course Apple is going to list numbers…
Ads are all about deceiving people into believing if they don’t do as the commercial says they are the odd one out.
Some guy said that his G4 Luxo lamp style iMac (”goofy neck computer” was running VIsta fine now.
That is clearly a lie since that machine could not run Vista under any circumstances. You need an Intel chip to run Vista.
I’m not sure what the point of such a bizarre statement was, but there you are.
I guess some people are really annoyed at the rise of Apple.
I agree that MacOS X Leopard should be compared with Vista on the percentage of upgrades sold over the installed base, and there Vista is clearly lagging.
Or we could just say that people love MacOS X and they are at best indifferent To Vista.
Clearly if you want the computer company whose products people actually like, Apple runs away with the trophy, with Steve Ballmer huffing and puffing and never coming even close.
D
Don’t forget that Microsoft it counting XP sales as Vista. Unbelievable, but true under some weird licensing counting.
Sounds like sonething Enron would cook up. Claiming great sales and no numbers to back it up.
Disclaimer: the apple computer I used that stupid goofy neck computer with the superdrive and the G4 processor. the worst piece crap puter i have ever, it however runs vista great now.
140 million copies, shipped. How many were sold thru retail? That’s the important figure. I’m guessing 99.9% were shipped thru OEMs and 0.1% were sold at retail.
I have no desire to upgrade to vista. The overwhelmingly biggest benefit of going with a Windows operating system is the support for them by software vendors. Of all the non-Microsoft software I use, all of them either, one, don’t support Vista, two, have Vista disclaimers, or 3, have known issues (bugs) with Vista.
Microsoft’s biggest advantage has been erased with Vista. Most people I talk to that don’t upgrade to Vista cite similar reasons.
Disclaimer: I have never even used a Mac. I am long AAPL
Just hang on a sec here. Not everyone who has Vista bought it or wanted to buy it. The machine I got at BestBuy had Vista pre-installed and they wanted $150 to take off and install XP.
So I “bought” Vista without wanting to buy it. People who buy Leopard want to buy it!
The mere idea that a sales comparison is worthy of an article is significant for Apple. It wasn’t too many years ago, when Apple’s market share was much lower, that such a comparison would have been laughable.
Apples to Oranges. Corporations overwhelmingly go with Windows. Consumers buy both, and tend to rush out and buy the latest and greatest. For a true comparison, you’ve got to break out Microsoft’s Vista upgrades sold to consumers, who have adopted it much faster than corporations have. IT depts operate on longer upgrade cycles.
ex ped: I thought Munster’s measure of the rate users upgraded was a pretty smart way to compare apples with apples.
Are you kidding? Let me see now. Vista runs on a bunch of Boxes. Leopard runs on only a Mac, which accounts for maybe 8% of the total PC market and you’re asking which has better sales?
Don’t be an idiot! Comparing the two in terms of sales is impossible, given the limitations. Now, if Leopard was able to be placed on a regular machine (exclude Hackintosh etc) and there was really a choice in software vs. Vista, then I think you would have a point.
More importantly, perhaps you could compare Vista sales to say, Windows XP? Now that would be comparing Apples to Apples.
RickW.
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
lol haters, i got vista busisess, well, cause i do business. im not some half baked freshmen trying to bit torrent on the fagoogle- soy chai late whiny hater in hand.
if you like apple, get one- but also keep quiet.