One of the biggest announces this year at CES2010 was the introduction of many new 3D HDTV sets. Six of the largest television makers including Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Mitsubishi, Vizio and LG have all announced new 3D HDTV sets that should debut throughout 2010.
Zpryme, a research-based advisory firm, collected information based on buzz words over the last month about 3D HDTV, Avatar 3D and CES2010.
“HDTV never had a “killer app” and has consequently taken a decade to gain any real traction—and even then, it’s been largely a result of rapidly falling prices and last year’s switch to digital. Avatar, however, has clearly presented consumers—and the industry at large—with a compelling case for going 3D.”
– Alex Perilla-Gayle, Zpryme Director of Consumer Insights
Avatar 3D was one of the most successful movies of all time, breaking box office records with over $1 billion in sales in 17 days. Consumers seem to really take to the 3D adventure, a very strong selling point for businesses in 2010 to push their 3D HDTVs and compatible media products.
Fast Company is reporting that the Director of Marketing for Microsoft’s Entertainment and Device Devision, Craig Belinson, has said that “Windows 7 is by far the fastest selling Operating System in history.” While this news may not come as much of a surprise, it’s always nice to hear how well Microsoft’s latest pride and joy is doing.
Sadly, Belinson didn’t provide any software sales numbers to back up his claim. Instead, he brought PC sales numbers, which directly correspond to Windows 7 sales (since PCs come with the OS installed). He states that during the week of Windows 7′s launch, there was a 50% jump in PC sales when compared to the previous week. In addition, Black Friday saw a 63% bump from a year ago, and the holiday season, as a whole, saw a 50% increase in PC sales. Just as a side note, a poll on Lifehacker, which was done just weeks after Windows 7 was released, showed that 41% of readers had already begun using Windows 7 as their primary OS.
While it’s great to see Windows 7 be the success that Vista, unfortunately, was not, it’s also important to remember that being the fastest selling OS doesn’t mean as much as it once did. Back in the days of Windows XP there were far fewer computers in the world and before XP, there were even less. Of course Windows 7 is the fastest selling OS, there are many more PCs in the world than there were when Vista, or any other Windows OS was released. This fact will continue to dictate the future trend of OS sales. As evident from Belinson’s comments, the more PCs sold in the world, the more copies of Windows sold. Microsoft’s next major OS release will most likely see even better numbers than Windows 7 did (assuming it’s not another Vista, of course).
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has a lot to be excited about, with the great success that is Windows 7. Steve Ballmer announced at the shareholders meeting that Windows 7 has sold more than double of any previous version of Windows ever sold, in a comparable time.
Even though Ballmer never officially announced how many units of Windows 7 were sold in the first month of release, The Wall Street Journal released an estimated number of 40 million units, comparing that Windows Vista sold 20 million in the first month.
“Since launch, we’ve already sold twice as many units of Windows 7 than any other operating system we’ve ever launched in a comparable time,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said.
Steve Ballmer used the word “fantastic” to describe Windows 7 sales in both Japan and North America, saying “Windows 7 is the simply best PC operating system we have ever built.” Microsoft is also closely watching the netbook market, since they result in less revenue on a per-unit basis, compared to laptop and desktop PCs for the company.
As manufactures will begin to report their numbers, Ballmer’s claim will be verified for sales of Windows 7 with new hardware. Dell already confirmed that Windows 7 sparked demand for new PCs among business consumers.
