smoke and mirrors
Steven Hewitt - you haven't understood. Just read the details at Microsoft's web site. Smoke and mirrors are the order of the day when US companies do their accounts.
$1.67bn of revenue was sales of XP (about 40million OEM XP home licenses?) deferred from prior quarters and counted as Vista sales in this quarter, because an upgrade voucher was offered. MS have treated these XP sales as Vista pre-orders with temporary XP license, to convert the anticipated Vista flop into a "success" that only a monopolist can create. The money from these sales was not recognised as sales when the sales occurred, but was "saved up" to make the Vista quarter look good.
One quarter of the "record earnings" were fabricated with this charade.
And as for Jesse Melton - talk about Stockholm syndrome. Microsft hijacked and smothered the industry, and for that I'm supposed to be grateful?
"Sorry Vista haters, thing this is showing that it's actually being shipped quite a bit, and people are paying for it too."
Just check software best sellers at Amazon.com. Right now: XP Home 14th; XP Pro 30th; Vista Home Upgrade 49th, handily beaten by such blockbusters as "Kids typing Instructor II" and "Quicken Willmaker plus Estate Planning". It's even less popular than Zune, which is 42nd in music players with dozens of Apple, Sandisk and Creative models ahead of it.
But don't worry, MS is still a monopoly, and will have you using Vista in the end anyway.