Vista sales rely on new PCs

When I read that Windows Vista has sold at twice the rate of XP, I smelt a rat and made a mental note to find out the comparable computer sales figures. Luckily, Ars Technica saved me the work in their "Vista's twofold sales boost" article. To quote,

"In early 2002, ten million new PCs were sold each month, along with 8.5 million copies of Windows XP. If the numbers hold, the first quarter of 2007 will see at least 21 million new PCs sold per month with Microsoft's announced 20 million copies of Windows Vista.

If anything, Vista should sell even more as it's clear Microsoft are starving the channel of systems preloaded with Windows XP. For most people it's Vista or nothing. Although one of my techs was told by Dell they've made more systems available with XP as customers are going elsewhere because they don't want Vista.