Microsoft moved a lot of install disks, but hardware makers got a bigger bump two years ago

Photo: Philip Elmer-DeWitt

When Microsoft (MSFT) launches a new operating system, as it did two weeks ago, PC manufacturers like Hewlett Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and Acer are supposed to reap the benefits. And everything seemed to be in place on Thursday Oct. 22 for that to happen.

"Never before has the industry launched such a variety of new form factors, price points, technology upgrades, and design innovations at one time," wrote NPD's Stephen Baker just before Windows 7's release. "This past weekend I happened by a Best Buy store and there was not one single PC for sale with Vista on it. Lots of Windows 7 machines, however, all of which were marked 'not for sale until October 22.' Someone did a great job in the supply chain making this happen. This will give Win 7 a tremendous boost out of the gate." (link)

Two weeks later, Baker is singing a different tune. Microsoft got a big boost according to NPD's weekly tracking data, racking up sales of Windows 7 that were 234% higher than Vista's during its first few days of sales. (More on that below the fold.)

But PC makers didn't make out quite as well. Although they had a relatively strong week, with unit sales up 49% year over year and 95% from the week before, it was nothing like Vista's launch in Feb. 2007. Then, sales soared 68% year over year and 170% from the week before.

In a press release issued Thursday, Baker explained what happened:

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Just three days were enough to push computer sales for the week up 40%

Click to enlarge. Source: Morgan Stanley, NPD

The sharp spike in the chart at right is the Windows 7 effect PC makers have been waiting for.

In a note to clients issued Monday afternoon, Morgan Stanley's Kathryn Huberty reports that NPD data for the week ending Oct. 24 — which included three days of Windows 7 sales — show PC sales jumping 40% year over year.

This was particularly encouraging, she writes, because sales in the early part of the week likely reflected the same pre-Windows 7 declines as the previous two weeks. PC buying for the weeks of Oct. 17 and Oct. 10 was down 29% and 2%, respectively, as consumers waited for Microsoft's (MSFT) new operating system to launch.

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Remember how cloud computing was supposed to kill client/server? Turns out it’s more of a wedding than a funeral.

First, some background: The hype surrounding cloud computing in recent years has been nothing short of wild. If you believed the popular wisdom, the traditional computing model was toast. Businesses were going to stop loading specialized programs onto workers’ PCs and buying expensive software and servers for data centers.

Instead, we’d have the cloud. Service providers like Salesforce.com (CRM) and Amazon (AMZN) would own the hardware and software, and let companies plug in over the Internet and use it on demand. More

Vista was too bloated for many corporate PCs to handle when it arrived three years ago. Its successor, Windows 7, is a better fit. Photo: Microsoft.

Rewind three years. One of the harbingers of doom for Windows Vista, Microsoft’s much-maligned operating system, was a survey that showed half of corporate PCs were too old or anemic to upgrade from XP to Vista. In other words, to get the new software, companies would have to spend a fortune on new computers.

Most never made the upgrade: 92% of PCs in the United States and Canada are still running XP, according to Softchoice, an IT consulting firm.

So it’s a good omen that Softchoice, the same firm that issued that fateful Vista study, is singing a very different tune about Windows 7. This time, its survey of 450,000 corporate PCs in the U.S. and Canada shows that 88% can handle the upgrade. More

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Interscope Chairman Jimmy Iovine wants to get the iPod generation hooked on high-quality sound. Photo: Beats by Dr. Dre.

The camera crew is setting up for our interview, and Jimmy Iovine wants me to listen to something on his iPod.

The chairman of Universal Music Group’s Interscope Geffen A&M Records is holding forth about how great his Beats Solo headphones sound; and as the overlord of a music empire that includes Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Eminem, and U2, he should know. He hands them to me and nudges the volume higher. The music thumps through, all rich bass and clear vocals.

“These sound pretty amazing,” I tell him, which is a bit like telling Frank Lloyd Wright he has decent taste in houses. Iovine takes this personally; he developed them alongside legendary hip-hop producer Dr. Dre.

The headphones are just one part of an audiophile movement Iovine and Dre are trying to spark in the under-30 crowd, the core music-buying audience. The Internet and digital revolution have greatly increased music’s availability — you can download it, stream it, and take it practically anywhere — but at the expense of quality. Says Iovine: “The sound has been degraded to such an extent that it’s, at times, not even representative of what went on in the recording studio.” He points out that the youngest music buyers, many of whom have never heard an LP, don't know what they're missing. More

Shaw is the latest non-technologist to ascend at Intel. Photo: Intel.

Who rules techland? Increasingly, it isn't the inmates.

In May, when Craig Barrett retired as chairman of Intel (INTC), the choice of his replacement marked a momentous occasion for the granddaddy of the semiconductor industry.

That Jane Shaw became nonexecutive chairman of Intel is a big deal, but not because she is Intel's first outsider to chair the board or because she is the first woman.

What makes her role noteworthy is that she is the first non-technologist in that seat. Yes, she has a science background, with a doctorate in physiology and a career in the pharmaceutical industry. But she's not a technologist in the Silicon Valley sense. More

Tech journalism loses Corcoran and Anders

It's a sign of the times that two of the tech world's finest, most seasoned, intelligent and nicest journalists no longer are plying their trade for the mainstream media. That they're also married means an entire household's prodigious output isn't finding its way anymore into the pages of two important business publications.

Elizabeth Corcoran and George Anders, she formerly of Fortune competitor Forbes and he formerly of The Wall Street Journal, are on their own these days.

Anders, a bigshot columnist and book author who spent years at the Journal in multiple postings, left a while ago. He reports that he's working on a book on talent. More

HP Executive Vice President Vyomesh Joshi isn't as close to Hurd as colleagues Livermore and Bradley are. Photo: HP.

If HP CEO Mark Hurd does merge the PC and printing businesses, what will that mean for printing chief Vyomesh Joshi?

A few months back, I spent some time at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) headquarters with Joshi, who’s known around HP simply as “VJ.” We talked about how he led the printing group to become a sales and profit powerhouse, the how the slowdown in printer sales growth is unfolding, and how he’s trying to get things going again. And we talked about how he’s doing under Hurd, an unsentimental numbers guy who hasn’t been shy about saying the printing business needs to shape up. More