Microsoft: 60M Windows 8 Licenses Sold, On Par With Windows 7 Adoption

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Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it has sold 60 million licenses for Windows 8 to date, putting the company’s latest, radically redesigned version of its signature operating system on the same adoption path as Windows 7, which is the most successful version of Windows to date in terms of sheer numbers (670 million licenses as of October 2012, when Windows 8 was launched). 

Microsoft also on Tuesday announced 100 million apps downloaded from its own online applications store, the Windows Store, which launched concurrently with Windows 8 on October 25, 2012.

The news comes as a counter to earlier reports, including one in the New York Times, of Windows 8’s sluggish start. Windows 8 has received mixed reviews from critics, but love it or hate it, it is clearly a massive departure from previous versions of Windows, hiding the familiar “Start” button and files-and-folders desktop interface in an app and replacing it with a “Start” screen consisting of multicolored, interlocking square “Live tiles” that function as shortcuts to programs and apps, and can display new information and alerts automatically. 

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