Windows 8 sells 40 million

Microsoft has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses since the new operating system launched on October 26. Tami Reller, who took over as head of Windows following the departure of Steven Sinofsky, revealed the news during a presentation during the Credit Suisse 2012 Annual Technology Conference yesterday.

"The journey is just beginning," Reller said. "But I am pleased to announce today that we have sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses so far."

Microsoft did not divulge how those license sales were broken down, but did say Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 in terms of number of upgrades over the same period of time.

This news follows a report from last week in which a "trusted source" at Microsoft said sales of Windows 8 are "well below Microsoft's internal projections" and have even been spoken of as "disappointing."