News

Windows 7 nabs Amazon's top sales spot

Microsoft's $150 Family Pack snares No. 1; $120 Home Premium grabs No. 3 on online retailer's software bestseller list

By Gregg Keizer

October 21, 2009 11:55 AM ET

Computerworld - Just hours before Microsoft is set to launch Windows 7, the new operating system has jumped to the top of the software bestseller list at online retailer Amazon.com and accounts for three of the first five spots and five of the top 10.

The $149.99 Windows 7 Family Pack, which lets users upgrade three PCs to Windows 7 Home Premium, held the first spot in Amazon.com's software bestseller list as of 11 a.m. Eastern today.

The $119.99 Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade owned the No. 3 spot, while the $219.99 Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade claimed No. 5. In the eighth and ninth spots, respectively, were the $199.99 Windows 7 Professional and the $199.99 Windows 7 Home Premium, the full version of the operating system that doesn't rely on an earlier edition to install.

Windows 7 claimed the top spots for a time in late June and early July, when Microsoft discounted preorders to as low as $49.99 for the Home Premium upgrade.

Apple's only showing on the top-10 list today was its $29 Snow Leopard upgrade, in the No. 4 position. In August, Snow Leopard snared the top spots on Amazon for several days leading up to, and after, its late-in-the-month launch.

Amazon and other online sellers, such as Newegg and TigerDirect, continue to sell Windows 7 at its full list price prior to its launch tomorrow. It's likely, however, that they will offer small discounts starting tomorrow. Amazon, for example, now sells Snow Leopard -- which launched Aug. 28 -- for $25, a price reduction of 14% from full retail.

TigerDirect is also keeping track of the time left before Windows 7's launch with a countdown clock that, as of early today, read just over 12 hours.

Microsoft will host a New York City launch event tomorrow at 11 a.m. Eastern, when CEO Steve Ballmer will kick off the coming-out party for the successor to the much-maligned Vista.

Windows 7

Top Stories

Free Insider Guide

Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet: Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.

Operating Systems White Papers

VMware View Optimization Guide for Windows 7: This document provides guidelines for configuring a standard Windows 7 image to be used within a VMware View™ environment, providing administrators with the...
Watson - A System Designed for Answers. The future of workload optimized systems design: Watson is a workload optimized system designed for complex analytics, made possible by integrating massively parallel POWER7 processors and DeepQA technology. Read the...
Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory: As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.: Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware: Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...

Operating Systems Webcasts

Optimizing Networks for the Cloud: Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere: Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere: Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware: Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence: Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®...