Speaking at Microsoft’s annual shareholder meeting held last Thursday, CEO Steve Ballmer cheerily announced that since its launch, Windows 7 has sold twice as many copies as any other Microsoft operating system within the comparable amount of time. Ballmer described the sales as “fantastic,” but evaded questions about actual figures on unit sales.<\/p>\n
According to NPD group, Microsoft has sold 234% more boxed copies of Windows 7 than it did during Vista’s initial launch period of two weeks. This only led to 82% more revenue than Vista sales however, due to numerous factors such as launch promotions, discounts, and the Windows 7 October launch versus the January Vista launch.<\/p>\n
NPD has not published any actual sales figures, but the The Wall Street Journal has come up with a number – 40-million copies sold. There is no mention as to whether this is retail, OEM, or a combination of the two. The first indicator of Windows 7 sale success may come when OEM partners announce their sales figures.<\/p>\n
According to PC World, Microsoft shareholders also approved the ‘say on pay’ scheme which will have the shareholders voting every three years to approve the compensation executives receive.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Microsoft has been facing down allegations that they collaborated with the American National Security Agency (NSA) to implement a backdoor in the OS. This came in the wake of statement from the NSA’s Information Assurance Director, Richard Schaeffer.<\/p>\n
“Working in partnership with Microsoft and (the Department of Defence), NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft’s operating system security guide without constraining the user’s ability to perform their everyday tasks. All this was done in coordination with the product release, not months or years later in the product cycle,” read the statement.<\/p>\n
Conspiracy theorists set the Internet abuzz with their concerns, to which Microsoft has since responded: “Microsoft has not and will not put ‘backdoors’ into Windows. The work being discussed here is purely in conjunction with our Security Compliance Management Toolkit.”<\/p>\n
Of course this is unlikely to appease those with a proclivity for wearing tinfoil hats when leaving the house and it does raise the question as to why a governmental security agency is mucking around in the private sector.<\/p>\n