Windows XP Flying Off the Shelves
WinInfo | at | by Mike
They just can't rid themselves of that original "now you're flying" theme for XP advertising, even though it was dropped in the wake of the September 11 attacks: Microsoft announced this week that Windows XP was "flying off the shelves," a reference to the product's TV ads, in which people are flying overhead while people work and play on XP machines. What's weird is that we're not hearing any concrete numbers yet: The company mentions only that XP sales are "exceeding initial sales of Windows 95 and Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me) and keeping pace with initial sales of Windows 98." Others have more concrete data: According to sales tracking firm NPD Intelect, XP sold 300,000 units at retail in three days. This compares to 400,000 units for Windows 98 and 200,000 units for Windows Me. I found another interesting statistic we can compare XP to at the end of the year: An October 17, 1995 press release for Windows 95 noted that that product had sold over 7 million copies at retail and with new PCs within two months of its launch.