Microsoft Sells 600 Million Windows 7 Licenses

In October 2009 Microsoft released Windows 7 and now two and a half years later vice president Steven Guggenheimer of the company’s OEM division has announced sales surpassing the 600 million licenses mark.

Guggenheimer announced the milestone during his Computex 2012 speech while demonstrating new Windows 7-based devices and explaining Microsoft’s Windows Upgrade offer for Windows 8 which will debut later this year.

When Windows 7 first launched the product debuted to rave reviews which led to 150 million sales in eight months, by July 2011 the product had reached 400 million sales.

Microsoft Windows 7 is believed to now be used on 39 percent of internet-connected devices however that number has not been broken down into corporate versus home computer users.

Windows 7 sales might have been even better if a German court had not banned Xbox 360 consoles and Windows 7 in the country following a patent lawsuit filed by Motorola, those products were banned last month.

In the meantime Guggenheimer also announced the second Community Technology Preview of Windows Embedded Standard 8 which provides OEMs with another opportunity to evaluate Windows 8 on their systems before the official version is released.

While Windows 7 has been a success Microsoft has reinvented the Windows 8 platform to better operate on tablet based devices and other PC based systems in which touch-screens are utilized.

Microsoft Windows 8 has been met with mixed early reviews including several YouTube videos in which older users appear completed baffled by the new software platform.

Will you be making the jump to Windows 8 when the upgrade is made available to Microsoft users later this year?