Microsoft boast of 400 million Windows 7 sales, not so good WP7 numbers

Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference kicks off in Los Angeles today, and keynote-leading CEO Steve Ballmer was both his usual bullish self but also surprisngly frank when it came to discussing his firm’s smartphone performance.

The success of Windows 7 was high on the agenda, with Ballmer revealing that over 400 million licenses for the operating system had been sold over the last year. He contrasted that with an unnamed rival OS that had sold just 20 million over the same period; a thinly vieled swipe at Apple’s Mac OS X.

Though Bing, Xbox and Winodws 8 were discussed, nothing new in these departments was shared, with Ballmer instead telling the gathered crowds to hold out for the upcoming BUILD conference.

Moving on to Windows Phone 7, Ballmer openly bemoaned the slow uptake for their new mobile platform. “We’ve gone from very small to very small, but it’s been a hell of a year,” said Ballmer humorously, and though only a vague figure of “millions” was referenced in relation to WP7 handset sales, it seems that Nokia tie-in can’t come soon enough.

Via: The Next Web