back to article Windows 8 Euro PC sales SHOCKER: Results actually not bad

Windows 8 sent the PC market's heartbeat up a tick or two in the period either side of launch but the pulse was still far from racing. Then again no one expected it to be, save maybe for OEMs, which simply crossed fingers and closed their eyes tightly in the hope of an uplift in sales instead of the downward or flatlining …

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  1. Joerg
    FAIL

    More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

    Trying to force people buying WIndows8 at any cost.

    Making a fool of people with fake numbers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

      Yep just channel stuffing numbers, actual purchases is a different matter.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

      LOL, so you believe Google, Apple and everyone else then?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

        I certainly believe android numbers, here you go:

        http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/02/idc-android-market-share-reached-75-worldwide-in-q3-2012/

    3. The BigYin

      Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

      Came here to say something similar. As it is basically impossible to buy a non-Apple PC without Windows, it is pretty easy for MS to get the figures it wants. So a few doom-and-gloom stories, then have the OEMs start to ship Win8 "OMG! LOOK! Our Win8 got n% sales. WE ARE THE AWESOME!"

      What the public need is some actual competition in the PC marketplace. Come on regulators, give MS a kicking, please.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

        "What the public need is some actual competition in the PC marketplace. Come on regulators, give MS a kicking, please"

        Question: Is that because Linux (for example) could not end the dominance of Windows, so you want the 'regulators' to do this instead?

        I really don't fully understand the entire preoccupation with MS bashing. There are, in fact, far more dishonest companies out there ripe for a kicking (i.e. Google/Apple). At least, of the three, Microsoft are the ones who are bold enough to stand up and say 'Hey, at least we're honest about our dishonesty'. The same cannot be said of other companies.

        Apple and Google need a good kicking first.

        PS I am not a Windows fan and only use Widows where necessary, but I never understand why those (and I don't mean you BigYin) who 'hate' Microsoft and don't use it are so keen to see it's downfall. After all it's about choice. Those wanting to see the demise of Microsoft would have that choice (to use Microsoft products) removed from others. Hardly a balanced approach. You can have what you like, so long as it's open and not Microsoft they say? See the contradiction there?

        1. The BigYin

          Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

          "I really don't fully understand the entire preoccupation with MS bashing. There are, in fact, far more dishonest companies out there ripe for a kicking (i.e. Google/Apple)."

          Neither of which are convicted monopolists (yet). Look, MS has been found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour, faces massive fines in the EU and should face sanction for their actions of SecureBoot. Period.

          I'm not arguing about Google or Apple, that's a different topic, but as the industry isn't providing choice - it's time to enforce choice. I don't really like regulation, but I don't see it happening any other way.

          1. dogged
            FAIL

            Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

            convicted monopolists

            O RLY?

            Google's Search Engine market share is roughly equivalent to Windows' desktop market share. Apple's share of, for example, the mp3 player market is somewhere similar. If you think monopolies are illegal, you really need to do some research.

            By the way, Microsoft are not a "convicted monopolist". They were convicted of attempting to leverage a (fully legal) monopoly into browser market share. Rightly or wrongly (especially given that others now do exactly the same) is not the issue.

            But let's look at Google logins for YouTube and the prioritisation of Google+ search results, shall we? Do you call that attempting to leverage a monopoly into another sphere? I do. But doubtless, you see nothing wrong with that, just as you see nothing wrong with monopolists that you happen to like.

            MS-bashing is super-trendy here on the Reg - it shows your leet hardcore credentials, I suppose. Ir's also pretty damn stupid but since I've said that, let's just sit back and watch those downvotes roll in.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

            "Neither of which are convicted monopolists (yet)."

            I thought that someone may mention monopolies and originally considered adding a footnote. But my comment was not scoped with solely monopolies issues in mind. It was intended to be broader in scope. I apologise if I did not make that clear.

            Whilst I understand your sentiment, I am not convinced that enforced choice is a valid option. It's a little too self-contradictory. I just don't like the idea of enforcing choice, for all of it's obvious problems.

            But do I have a better suggestion? No, I don't. I wish I did.

            1. The BigYin

              Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

              I don't like the enforced choice either, but the "No OS" option seems the least bad to me as the current situation is untenable. Also, it does not force anyone to carry a competing product.

              Now, this is where someone drags out a car analogy and asks if I want or buy a car with no engine. It's not the same. I have a choice of car engines, if I buy a Ford or Mazda or Honda I will get a different engine. One simply can do this in the IT world because there is effectively only one "engine" manufacturer and actively blocks any competitors. Would we stand for this? No, of course not.

              Yet, somehow, because it's in the IT world it is somehow acceptable.

              Competition is good, we need this in the PC marketplace to drive innovation and investment.

            2. h4rm0ny

              Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

              "But do I have a better suggestion? No, I don't. I wish I did."

              I do. Making deals or discounts conditional on not selling a rival's products should be illegal. There's no need to force anyone to sell computers with Ubuntu pre-installed. Just make sure that no big player can force them not to.

          3. h4rm0ny

            Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

            "Neither of which are convicted monopolists (yet). Look, MS has been found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour, faces massive fines in the EU and should face sanction for their actions of SecureBoot. Period."

            Secure Boot is part of UEFI and is produced by a forum of all the main hardware manufacturers (Intel, ARM, AMD, Lenovo, etc.). MS is one of around thirteen members and Secure Boot is not "theirs". Any OS manufacturer could implement this. It's just part of the UEFI spec. I get the sense that if RedHat had beaten MS to taking advantage of it, you'd be boasting of how it made GNU/Linux intrinsically more secure. I don't know how many times this has been pointed out, but if you aren't aware of this, you should be by now.

            1. The BigYin

              Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

              @h4rmOny - I know perfectly well what SecureBoot is, thank. I also know the impact that MS's diktat has had, and it can be summarised as "Pay us US$99 or piss off out of the PC market". Add to that the inability to change keys on Win8 badged ARM devices and you have, IMHO, more than enough for regulators to stick the boot in.

              Oh, and do lay off the straw men.

              1. h4rm0ny

                Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

                <blockquote>@h4rmOny - I know perfectly well what SecureBoot is, thank. I also know the impact that MS's diktat has had, and it can be summarised as "Pay us US$99 or piss off out of the PC market"</blockquote>

                You apparently don't know as much about Secure Boot as you think you do. As pointed out, you are wrong in stating it's a Microsoft technology. It's been introduced as part of UEFI which is the product a consortium of all the main hardware players from Apple to AMD to ARM. You're repeated attempts to cast it as "Microsoft's diktat" show you are not willing to accept that you are wrong even when you can easily go and check this fact for yourself. Secondly, no-one has to pay Microsoft US$99 to stay in the PC market. No-one has to pay at all. Linux survived perfectly well with people changing which device they boot off before. Turning on or off Secure Boot is no different and Secure Boot has demonstrable and obvious security benefits to have it on which is why the UEFI forum introduced it in the first place. Nor, if another OS manufacturer wants to use it (and I hope they will, otherwise we'll have even more posts here from RICHTO explaining why Linux is less secure than Windows), then they don't have to pay MS at all. Red Hat is paying MS to sign their boot loader because MS will actually provide this service cheaper than Red Hat can do it themselves. Not sure where you got the figure of $US99. Are you under the impression that Ubuntu or Red Hat must pay MS $99 for each install or something?

                "Add to that the inability to change keys on Win8 badged ARM devices and you have, IMHO, more than enough for regulators to stick the boot in."

                Yeah, that's a shame. But I was talking about PCs.

                "Oh, and do lay off the straw men."

                Not aware that I made any. You posted some misleading comments about Secure Boot and I responded. As these misconceptions have been addressed multiple times here and you're a regular, I think it likely that you've encountered them before. So if by "strawmen" you mean how I wrote that if Red Hat or Ubuntu had beaten MS to the punch on adopting Secure Boot you'd be touting it as a win for GNU/Linux, then yes. There is an implication that I suspect you're biased there. That's not a strawman though. It's just my impression.

        2. Arctic fox
          Flame

          @AC 14 Nov 11.47 "You can have what you like, so long as it's open..................

          ........and not Microsoft they say? See the contradiction there?"

          When I'm feeling charitable I assume that they do not. When I am not feeling so benign I am forced to conclude that many of those postings are wilfully dishonest.

        3. t20racerman
          Linux

          Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

          Both Dell (who I had a trade account with) and HP refused pointblank to sell me the laptop I wanted WITHOUT Windows pre-installed. I hate Windows and only use Linux on my own computers, but to buy hardware, from a hardware manufacturer, I had to pay Microsoft money for I product I hate and detest. Dell agreed to close my business account rather than sell me the laptop I wanted.

          That my friend is why I hate Microsoft so much - they have a huge monopoly, abuse it, make crap products, and bully OEMs into refusing to sell computers without Windows pre-installed. I hope they collapse when Windows 8 and their shit phones fail.

          1. Captain DaFt

            @t20racerman

            Quite a puzzle isn't it?

            Microsoft will happily sell you a copy of their OS without a Dell computer, to use on any machine that you choose, so why can't they (Dell) sell you a computer without Windows to use with any OS that you choose?

            It seems that bit of imbalance has now come back to bite Dell and the other box sellers hard now that Microsoft's turning all Apple-ly and testing out selling their own hardware/OS combination.

            "But, but," they cry out, "Microsoft promised that they'd never do such a thing!"

          2. h4rm0ny

            Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

            It depends what the size of the market for laptops without an OS on is. Unless there is significant demand, it's not worth Dell's time to make small exceptions. They would lose more money than they made putting in place different sales models and processes just for your business. Even if your business wanted to order a few hundred. How many laptops did you want to buy?

            I agree that they should sell them without OSs and I think MS have used their commercial clout to dissuade OEMs in the past. But really it's a bit of a chicken and egg. Unless there is a lot more demand for computers without an OS installed than there currently is, OEMs wont find it worth their time to sell them.

            If I were running a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, the first thing I would do would be to strike a deal for PCs without an OS myself and re-sell them with GNU/Linux installed. That would also enable me to avoid the set-up process for non-technical users and make sure all drivers were installed and the hardware was all Linux-friendly. That's what Google have been trying with their Chromebooks, but I would do it with a proper OS (Ubuntu, CentOS, Mint), not just a browser in a box. That way I ought to be able to make some in-roads.

    4. andy 45

      Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

      Player-hater

    5. LarsG
      Meh

      Re: More fake statistics paid by Microsoft

      It's all down to sustainability and now win 8 has been found with more holes than a Swiss cheese........

  2. dogged
    Holmes

    The only people surprised by this are the cretins on the Register's comments pages who find using a launcher scary and wrong.

    Non-jihadists, it seems, find it pretty easy.

    1. Anonymous Coward
  3. Joerg
    FAIL

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserver8gen/thread/171a1808-157e-4ef9-b0dd-8a507ff6fcef

    "Nick Bissette Thursday, October 18, 2012 1:50 PM

    We have a 100GB ReFS volume. The volume was filled to capacity and now the volume is unaccesible. If you click on the drive letter in Windows Explorer it displays the following "W:\ is not accessible. The volume repair was not successful." There are several events in the system event log for event ID 133. "The file system detected a checksum error and was not able to correct it. The name of the file or folder is "<unable to determine file name>"." I have tried added additional space to the drive via Disk Management as well but it failed with the following error. "The volume cannot be extended because the volume does not contain a recognized file system."

    Anyone have any ideas on how to fix an ReFS volume?

    So far I am not too impressed with this "resilient" file system...

    "

  4. Mage Silver badge
    Coat

    Captive Market?

    Well, duh, due to difficulty of buying a new PC with XP, Win7 or nothing pre-installed, what ever sales of "new" PC kit that would have happened is going to happen anyway.

    What if NO Apple Mac or PC had an OS pre-installed and you could SEPARATELY chose OS X, Redhat, Debian, Ubuntu, Solaris, Suse, XP, Win7 or Win8?

    Mine's the one with a 4G SD card containing RiscOS in the pocket.

    1. big_D Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Captive Market?

      People would still chose the PCs with an OS installed, preferably one they know.

      It is the same as asking, what engine would a customer put in their car, if they bought a body and had a choice of engines from Mercedes, Ford, GM, BMW etc. The answer is, whatever engine the dealer would put in it for them.

      Most people don't care what OS they have, as long as they can do their work or browse Facebook.

      The manufacturer name on the case might sway them one way or another, but offering them a PC with no OS on it is sure way to scare them off.

      1. WP7Mango

        Re: Captive Market?

        Interesting analogy about buying a vehicle and choosing the engine...

        However, that's EXACTLY how the coach industry works. You can choose your body manufacturer and decide what chassis / engine it will run on. The reason you do that is because each engine / chassis manufacturer has pros and cons and so the client purchases the combination that best meets their requirements.

        The point is this - many people DO care which operating system they have because they don't all support the applications you might need for your work, or because one operating system is more battery efficient than the other, or because of some other reason, etc etc.

        Windows 8 vs Windows 7 is a good example. Windows 8 will give you better performance and more battery life on a laptop than Windows 7. But Windows 8 really needs a touch-screen for optimal usage, so the hardware costs a bit more. It's all about best meeting your requirements and budget.

        1. big_D Silver badge

          Re: Captive Market? (@wp7mango)

          I'll give you a half thumbs up for that.

          It might be so in the coach industry, but they still buy the coach pre-assembled, even if they choose a mixture of components.

          The average user, given a PC with an empty hard drive and a shrink wrapped OS wouldn't know how to begin. That was my point.

          I agree, there are a minority of users that do want to be able to select their OS, but for the "unwashed masses", they just want something that works out of the box. They don't know and they don't care what a computer is or how it works, as long as they can do what they want with it.

  5. John P
    Linux

    Wow the "M$ are evil and everything said about them is a lie paid for by Ballmer" trolling begins on the first post today.

    Any idea how much of the 2.5% RT sales is made up of all the Surfaces Microsoft is giving their employees?

    I've had Windows8 on my home desktop for the past week and I must say the TIFKAM aspects haven't bothered me half as much as I expected them to, I haven't even really had to make a conscious attempt to avoid them. Live tiles are proving mildly useful as when the computer boots, I get BBC headlines scrolling on the front page and easy access to all my main apps just as easily as I did before, in some cases easier.

    Still not sure I'd want to spend all my days in TIFKAM land, but largely not as unpleasant as I expected.

    Penguin because I'm waiting for the "Linux rulez, Wind0wz sux" trolling to begin.

    1. El Andy

      "Any idea how much of the 2.5% RT sales is made up of all the Surfaces Microsoft is giving their employees?"

      From what I've heard from actual Microsoft employees, they don't expect to get theirs till around Christmas, as the initial production runs have gone to paying customers.

    2. big_D Silver badge
      Facepalm

      0% MS employees

      these are channel figures - units shipped by wholesalers. The Microsoft Surface RT to employees would be an inhouse transaction and wouldn't show up in channel figures.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 0% MS employees

        In fact all Surface sales are direct, non-channel. Implies the RT figure here relates to ASUS etc. - anyone know for sure?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shipped? To where?

    Sure, boxes shipped. To customers or to sale departments (retailers)? Because well; that was inevitable given the fact that companies are eventually forced into this anyway because MS will sooner or later stop the sale of Windows 7.

    I'd be more impressed with sale figures from individual resellers.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Early days

    I expect we'll see some reliable figures in time. Meanwhile whats the rush, why do some people here who obviously aren't involved in the PC business care so much what ships in the first few days or weeks? This isn't X-factor.

  8. AJ MacLeod

    Note when the upturn started, and 75% of them weren't Windows 8...

    I'm sure a very significant percentage of this temporary sales upturn is due to people wanting a new PC WITHOUT Windows 8 on it, it's already much less easy than I would have expected to choose Windows 7 on a new PC from the big names at this point.

  9. BigAndos
    Facepalm

    "Businesses don't generally adopt a new OS until about 18 months down the line"

    I do love this oft-quoted myth. I wish I worked at one of these companies.

    *Curses as IE7 won't load my Gmail properly*

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, 6000 RT devices sold, then... is that across Europe?

    not too promising.

    Note that the uptick includes a weeks or two prior to the Windows 8 launch... it's almost as if the Windows 8 sales are *on top of* ongoing sales of 7. And of course there will be an increase of sales in general (festive season) and the outgoing OS in particular.

    So the only really interesting thing is the 6000 Windows RT devices... not terribly many considering the hype.

  12. The Godfather
    Coat

    yor havin a laf.........

    Quantities manufactured or shipped to distributors/wholesalers/retailers are meaningless - what counts is how many are bought by those that are supposed to use them.

    Statisticians with their head poked in a hot oven and feet in a freezer, will say that on balance, they feel fine.

  13. FreeTard
    Thumb Up

    Had a go at the launch

    It's shite.

  14. Richard Lloyd
    Stop

    Captive audience

    It really doesn't matter how bad or good any particular release of WIndows is because the vice-like grip MS has on OEMs (the threat of losing their volume license discounts) means that MS can release any old rubbish and people are effectively forced to buy PCs with Windows on - the OEMs are just too scared to offer PCs with no OS or any alternative OS on them.

    So it's either Windows or the overpriced hardware+software combo that is Mac OS X (or iOS) - not much a choice for the consumer buying off the shelf really!

    Hence, it's absolutely no shocker that Windows 8 is selling well - it was always going to, even if people don't like it! The only thing I expect not to sell well is upgrades from pre-Windows 8 - which is why MS is pricing them at rock bottom levels for a short period because once those upgrades go back to full price, they'll not sell at all, IMHO.

    The situation has become so bad that my latest two PCs are now custom-built by white box makers (I get to choose the components I want and even bought one with no hard or SSD drivers :-) ) - and no Windows included too! Needless to say, they're dual booting into CentOS 6 for serious stuff and Ubuntu for media duties.

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