Windows XP was launched globally on October 23, 2001. XP, short for “experience”, was Microsoft’s departure from the GUI the was placed on top of DOS, which was the case with preceding versions such as 3.x and 95, and was built on top of the of Windows NT kernel instead. The OS was released to OEMs on October 24 and was available for sale on October 25, 2001.
While Microsoft repeatedly announced the end of retail and OEM sales of Windows XP shortly after the release of Windows Vista in January of 2006, the boom of netbooks as well as a badly received Windows Vista created a surge in demand for Windows XP between 2006 and 2008. Retail sales of Windows XP finally ended on June 30, 2008 and OEM distribution closed (with Windows Vista) on October 22, 2010. Microsoft still provides extended support for XP users until April 8, 2014.
It is unclear how many XP licenses were sold in total. However, an IDC analyst estimated in 2006 that about 400 million Windows XP licenses were in active use globally. It is estimated that Windows XP sold about 500 to 600 million licenses in total. That number compares to about 450 million Windows 7 licenses sold until the end of September, 2011. There is no information how many Vista licenses were sold, but we know that 180 million Vista licenses were sold within 22 months after launch. If we assume that Microsoft kept that pace of 8 million sold licenses per month over the following 26 months until end of OEM sales, the Vista may have sold about 384 million licenses.
According to StatCounter, Windows XP just lost OS market share leadership to Windows 7 this month. Windows 7 is estimated to hold 40.41% share this month, up from 39.04% in September. XP has fallen to 38.51%, while Vista is at 11.21%. Vista market share peaked at 23.60% in October of 2009, the month when Windows 7 was introduced. At that time XP, more than 3 years after the introduction of Vista, XP still held 67.55% of the OS market.
Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 23
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