This afternoon I had a very interesting conversation wih Dave Wascha, Director of Microsoft’s Windows Client Partner Platform group. Apparently, Microsoft can't release stats about Vista sales due to the SEC or something, so I'm going to look into that. He gave me a bunch of other stats that you may have heard before, but here's some you havent:
- As of yesterday, there are over 1.9 million devices supported in Windows Vista. That number is up from 1.4 million at launch
- Any device that has over 500 "driver not found" errors worldwide is put on a priority compatibility list.
- There are currently only 4,000 devices on that list, and those devices encompass 85% of the "driver not found" errors that Microsoft is seeing.
- Microsoft has seen 21% fewer support calls for Windows Vista than in the same period (100 days) for Windows XP.
Some stats from the testing process:
- 355 test servers in Redmond
- running 10,000 tests a day
- have tested 12-14 hundred of the most popular applications
- and have run over 10M tests
I asked Dave for some details about Vista adoption in businesses, and he couldn't tell me much. But he did say this: Since February, there have been over 150,000 combined downloads of BDD 2007 and the Application Compatibility Toolkit.
Dave said that he surfs the blogs all the time, and any time he sees someone with a Vista problem, he checks with Microsoft for a solution. He says that most of the time, there is a solution available to the problem, usually in the form of updated drivers on the vendor's website.
He also said that he wants more people to know about how important it is to opt-into Windows Update. He said they should also opt-into the Customer Experience Improvement Program, and send crash reports to Microsoft whenever possible. Apparently there is a portal where Microsoft ISVs can check to get detailed information on the any crashes their applications are causing, and the information you provide (anonymously, of course) helps make those apps better.
Personally, I check the "Problems and Solutions Center" at least once a week. One day I hope to find a solution for IE's constant crashing. Maybe the Cumulative Update for IE released today will solve that problem? We'll see.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to send an e-mail to the SEC to find out why Microsoft can't report their sales numbers.