Microsoft: We’re Selling Seven Copies of Windows 7 a Second

It took nearly a decade, but it appears that Microsoft (MSFT) has finally developed a worthy heir to Windows XP. Evidently, Windows 7 is proving the commercial success that Windows Vista never was.

At the company’s annual meeting last fall, CEO Steve Ballmer claimed the operating system had sold twice as many units as any OS in a comparable timeframe, though he didn’t offer a hard number. Now, four months later, we have one: Microsoft has sold 150 million copies since the October 2009 launch. And that, as the company notes, makes Windows 7 the fastest-selling operating system in history, with seven copies of Windows 7 sold every second.

If there was pent-up demand created by the poor reception for Windows Vista, Windows 7 seems to have released it–in both the consumer and enterprise markets.