Kevin Stecyk

Key Takeaways From Best Buy, Circuit City Earnings: Vista's Selling Well, TVs Are Cheap

While I am not interested in getting in a flame war with you, had you paid attention, you would have noted that I said, "Again Malkiel, last I checked freedom of speech is still allowed and that allows me to conclude whatever I want. So don't go telling me <b>or others</b> what we are entitled to." In other words, Larry, too, is entitled to voice his opinion on whatever matter his chooses. And unlike you, he is courageous enough not to hide behind a veil of anonymity, but rather provide his real name and identity. Usually when people provide their real identity, they tend to be more civil and courteous.

And with that, I am glad we agree on the Vista sales. At least we agree about something. :-)

Key Takeaways From Best Buy, Circuit City Earnings: Vista's Selling Well, TVs Are Cheap

Malkiel, I am entitled to conclude anything I want. Whether I am right or not is another question.

Of course, MSFT pulled XP off the shelves. What did you expect?

Wouldn't a better methodology to cage the acceptance XP be as follows:

1) How many XP units were sold when XP was released? And what was the installed user base?

2) How many Vista units were sold when Vista was released? And what is the installed user base?

That will provide us with a glimpse of how enthusiastically Vista is being adopted. Are users lining up at Best Buy, Circuit City et al., to buy this new upgrade. Or will they "make do" with what they've got until their pc needs to be replaced?

Another thing you can do is look at popular software packages and peripherals to see if they are compatible. That will also provide a cage of adoption. If there are severe compatibility problems, then we can begin to make some inferences, can't we?

You might want to Google for incompatibilities. There are a lot of institutions that are NOT upgrading because of incompatibilities.

Again Malkiel, last I checked freedom of speech is still allowed and that allows me to conclude whatever I want. So don't go telling me or others what we are entitled to.

Key Takeaways From Best Buy, Circuit City Earnings: Vista's Selling Well, TVs Are Cheap

My second quote from above was sourced from: Adobe to CS2 users: Want Vista? Upgrade.

Key Takeaways From Best Buy, Circuit City Earnings: Vista's Selling Well, TVs Are Cheap

Larry, I am not sure how you conclude that Vista sales are strong. According to your own ZDNet linked article, we see that the 20 million is on a much larger base. In other words, the release of XP was much more impressive.

<blockquote>Micr... claims Windows Vista is off to a fast start, having sold more than 20 million copies since its January 30 consumer release.

By comparison, in its first two months, Windows XP sold 17 million copies, Microsoft said.

"We are encouraged to see such a positive consumer response to Windows Vista right out of the gate," Corporate Vice President Bill Veghte said in a statement Monday. "While it's very early in the product lifecycle, we are setting a foundation for Windows Vista to become the fastest-adopted version of Windows ever."

Of course, the PC market has grown substantially since XP hit store shelves. In 2001, worldwide PC shipments totaled 136 million units, while last year the industry shipped 227 million computers, according to IDC. </blockquote>

Moreover, many people bought PCs in 4Q 2006 so that they would have XP and would get the free upgrade Vista CDs. They are still waiting for all the incompatibilities to be worked out before actually upgrading.

<blockquote cite="www.cnet.com.au/softwa...">Running Creative Suite 2.0 on Windows Vista is "not recommended" and it will not update those products for Vista, Adobe said.

"While some of its components, including Adobe InDesign CS2, Illustrator CS2 and Photoshop CS2, install and run under Windows Vista with only minor known issues, other components such as Acrobat 7.0 Professional do not support Windows Vista," according to the statement.</blockqu...

What I found interesting about BBY is that same store sales in the U.S. grew only 4.8% while they grew 14% internationally. While the U.S. is experiencing real estate woes and a slowing economy, will BBY continue to hit its numbers for the remaining quarters of the year. I note that the stock is down about 1.7% while the Dow and S&amp;P are slightly up.