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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has hinted about the company’s ambitious sales plans of Windows 8. According to him, there will be 500 million Windows 8 users by end of 2013. However, analysts expect Windows 8 to flop and PC sales to suffer.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said earlier that 350 million devices with Windows 7 would be sold in 2012. No doubt, Windows 7 was one of Microsoft’s most successful operating systems in the past decade as it took only two years for Microsoft to sell the first 450 million Windows 7 licenses. Is Steve Ballmer making some over ambitious predictions for Windows 8 after watching the success of Windows 7?

He said on Tuesday in a speech to the Seoul Digital Forum, “It’s really, in some senses, a dawning of the rebirth of MS Windows… It’s certainly the most important piece of work we’ve done. The number of core [cloud] platforms, around which software developers will do their innovation, is not ever-broadening. It’s really a quite smaller and focused number – Windows, various forms of Linux, the Apple ecosystem.”

Though Windows 8 Release Preview including Metro Style News, Sports, and Travel Apps are supposed to be released on the first week of June, 2012, but still companies are getting around to buying Windows 7. To reach half a billion users in one year, Microsoft would need to convince its core customers to upgrade right after the Windows 8 launch.

However, some analysts are not convinced. An analyst at BMO claimed that “Windows 8 will prove to be a disappointment, at least out of the gate.” In fact, analysts don’t think that Windows 8 will be as successful as Windows 7 was and continues to be, and that PC sales could suffer as a result. But the nay-sayers should also consider the possibility of Windows 7 users upgrading to Windows 8 immediately after the latter’s launch. Rumor says Microsoft will offer an $15 update to Windows 8 Pro for Windows 7 users. If that proves to be true, then 500 million Windows 8 users by 2013 won’t be problem.

Source : AFP
Thanks To : Yahoo, The Age

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