Puget Systems says PC buyers are "reluctant" to step up to Windows 8.
Depending on where you look, Windows 8 is either off to a scorching fast start or it flopped out of the gate with little interest from consumers. There doesn't appear to be much middle ground. Obviously, Microsoft is promoting the former, claiming it sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses in the first month. Yet companies like Asus are saying that the demand for Windows is "not that good," while PC OEMs in general are refusing to take the blame for soft sales. What's the real story? To help answer that question, Puget Systems posted some interesting data and thoughts about its own Windows 8 versus Windows 7 sales figures.
"Keep in mind that as a custom PC shop, our customers dictate sales trends. Unlike some of our competitors, we didn’t stop offering Windows 7 when Windows 8 arrived. We began offering Windows 8 across our product line the day it become available," Puget Systems stated in a blog post.
Puget posted a graph reflecting the sales disparity between the two OSes, and since the day Windows 8 launched, it's been bouncing back and forth between about 10 percent and 20 percent of total sales.
"The lack of substantial spike in initial Windows 8 sales shows that our customers are reluctant to wade into the waters of Microsoft’s newest operating system," Puget says.
The boutique system builder offered up some thoughts on why that's the case. One of them is that the landscape is different today than when Windows 7 launched. Back then, you had a large number of XP users who opted to skip Vista, and when Windows 7 debuted to favorable reviews, many of them made the leap. Windows 8, however, is trying to supplant an OS that most users like.
In addition, Puget believes "the removal of the Start menu is a deal breaker for many," and though there are ways around that, we can understand it being a turnoff for some users. For these and other reasons, Puget says it plans to sell Windows 7 alongside Windows 8 for as long as Microsoft commits to selling and supporting the previous generation OS.
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