Windows 7 Selling Twice as Fast as Vista

Industry market research group NPD has just published an analysis of Microsoft's recent launch of their new Windows 7 operating system -- and the results are good news.  Well, they're good news for Microsoft, anyway.  The sales figures show that Windows 7 sold more than twice as many copies -- something around 2.4 times -- as Windows Vista during its equivalent launch period. 

Similarly, the OS gave a solid bump to purchases of personal computers, said the research group; sales doubled over the week prior to the launch and were even up 49 percent over the same time last year.  Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft expected a small but noticeable bump in sales, but that it wouldn't be excessive; these numbers, however, seem to dispute that.  At least they do until you dig a little more -- the launch of Vista saw an even bigger bump in terms of hardware and software sales.