Windows 8 -- early sales numbers point to....

Today, Microsoft announced that it had sold 4 million copies of its Windows 8 OS (and separately, had shipped tens of millions of units to OEMs), since sales first started (four days of sales #s).  Many sites have touted this as signs of Windows 8's success.

You should know better than that.

Three years ago when Windows 7 came out, following Steve Ballmer's numbers that Windows 7 had outpaced Vista 2:1, the WSJ calculated that out to 40 million copies sold in its first four weeks.

Two years ago, following a Microsoft announcement that it had sold 150 million copies of Windows 7 in nine months, ConceivablyTech estimated, based upon total dollar amount of presales and the cost of presale units, that Microsoft had sold between 25 and 35 million units.

4 million total boxed sales for Windows 8 is a lot less than 25~35 million Windows 7 presale volume.

If you optimistically assume that the 4 million units sold can be extrapolated to 1 million units sold per day, based on four days' worth of sales, then in the best-case scenario, Windows 8 is projected to sell just 28 million copies in four weeks.

This is what it boils down to:

• 4M Windows 8 initial  four day sales < 25~35M Windows 7 presales
• 28M Windows 8 projected 4-week sales < 40M Windows 7 calculated 4-week sales

I'm not going to repeat the message I've been saying this whole year; I'll let you decide what to make of Microsoft's performance and public rhetoric.