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Comment by 3825 | Hacker News Reader

Without even clicking the link, the first thing I saw from the title that there are fewer than two app downloads per every license sold. This is an outrage. Why are the numbers so low?

Without even clicking the link, my guess is that it is because of creative ways of saying what it means to have "sold" a license. Clearly, Windows 8 has fewer than 60 million users.

Demand a more concrete number from Microsoft. How many people have a valid credit card number on file on the Windows 8 App Store? How many apps does an average user buy? What is the average price of an app on the Windows app store?

1700 devices certified means nothing to me. Show me the money.

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Without even clicking the link, my guess is that it is because of creative ways of saying what it means to have "sold" a license. Clearly, Windows 8 has fewer than 60 million users.

..yes, that's probably true. clicking the link you'd see that they are pretty clear in that the 60 million licenses number is just that, licenses they've sold (consumer upgrades + oem installs). wouldn't really call it creative as, financially, this makes perfect sense from their perspective -- in that they record revenue at the point of sale (with the majority of sales to OEMs). as far as I know this is also consistent with how they've always reported sales, making the numbers comparable with previous launches.

I don't know too much about the dynamics of the industry but I'm guessing activations likely lag licenses sold by a month or so..

Certainly many of the licenses must have been sold to businesses. I wouldn't expect most businesses to buy software through the app store.

For that matter I wouldn't expect individuals to use the app store much either. I use both Windows 8 and Mac OS, but have never bought anything on the Windows app store, and have only "bought" (for $0) XCode from the Mac app store. The low app-to-OS-license ratio may indicate that the App store isn't doing well, not that the license numbers are inflated.

Maybe the licenses were sold to vendors to pre-install on hardware?

It is possible to install apps on Windows 8 computers separately from the app store, so the app attachment rate is meaningless.

It is different for Windows 8 Phones and RT, the Windows 8 in the article includes all forms of Windows 8.

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