Sales of Microsoft's Windows 98 operating system, which was released in late June, are currently outselling Windows 95 at the same point in its sales history. This news came from Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, who was addressing IT executives in Europe, though no figures were made available. Microsoft typically announces OS sales figures at specific milestones, such as a certain number sold.
"Windows 98, so far, is selling better than Windows 95," said Gates, who had previously said that he had expected Windows 98 to sell fewer copies than Windows 95. "The product is doing very well."
Gates said that Windows 98/NT, Office, and BackOffice were responsible for over 90% of the company's income.
"We're good at building high volume software products," he said, though he added that Microsoft needed to make things easier for consumers. "Our top priority is our 'simplicity' initiative. We have to make a big advance to bring in simpler approaches. There are still too many commands, too many ways of storing information.