IDC

18 months ago to this day was when we launched Windows 7 and with that we’ve hit another important milestone: we are pleased to announce that Windows 7 has sold more than 350 million licenses. The momentum we’ve seen and continue to see with Windows 7 is incredible.

A few weeks ago we announced the availability of Windows Intune in 35 countries, and it’s great to see partners and customers taking advantage of Windows Intune and the free 30-day trial.

As lead on the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) product management team, I’m often talking to customers about the business value they can reap by using any combination of the tools within MDOP. To provide a little more guidance on why they should be using MDOP, we sponsored an IDC white paper in February to explain how businesses can save money using this group of tools.

It’s been a week since the launch of Windows Intune and we’re seeing customers around the world trying our new cloud service for better PC management and security and taking advantage of the Windows 7 Enterprise upgrade rights that are included.

We’ve also gotten a lot of questions of Windows Intune and how it works. So I want to tell you how you can learn more and get your questions answered.

All summer long we’ve given you some great reasons to purchase a new PC and make the move to Windows 7, an operating system loved by a whopping 94% of folks who use it! Here’s one more: starting October 3 in the U.S., Windows 7 Family Pack will be available for purchase at participating retailers and online at the Microsoft Store.

Today is earnings day and Windows continues to have a strong showing. We announced a new milestone in Windows 7 sales - 175 million copies. This continues our record breaking pace of more than 7 copies sold per second. And as of today – Windows 7 is now running on more than 16% of all PCs worldwide. It's exciting to see this kind of response from customers who have helped make Windows 7 the fastest selling operating system in history.

According to IDC, the global PC market grew 22.4% in the 2nd quarter of 2010 which is in line with their forecast of forecasted growth of 22.9%. I suggest giving the IDC press release a read if you’re interested in the seeing the break out of top (6) PC vendors and worldwide PC shipments. It’s great to see continued growth in the PC market.

We’ve been talking about the value that Windows 7 Professional brings to small businesses for a while, including productivity benefits that can help businesses save time and money. Today we’d like to share some details from an IDC White Paper sponsored by Microsoft worldwide research study, which explores the business value and return on investment (ROI) of Windows 7 for small and midsize businesses.

There is some interesting discussion happening today regarding netbook sales, namely that new devices may be negatively impacting sales and growth.

Paul Thurrott has done a nice job of separating hype from reality. He references IDC’s forecast that 45.6 million mininotebooks (aka netbooks) will be sold in 2011 and 60.3 million units in 2013.

You may have read my post from last week on the great momentum we’re seeing with Windows 7 to-date. I thought I would share some more good news – not just for Microsoft and Windows, but for the entire technology industry.