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Windows 98 Exceeds Expectations

LISBON, Portugal--Microsoft chief Bill Gates said today that sales of his group's Windows 98 software product were so far better than sales of its previous product Windows 95 and had exceeded expectations. "Windows 98 so far is selling better than Windows 95," he told a meeting of information technology executives during a trip to Lisbon. He gave no figures for sales.

Gates said that prior to the launch of the product, he had not expected sales of Windows 98 to do as well as Windows 95. "We're saying that Windows 98 is a great upgrade if you [corporate clients] have the time to do it," he said. "The product [Windows 98] is doing very well," he added.

Gates said Microsoft's Windows, Office, and Backoffice products represented some 90 percent of the group's sales. "We're good at building high volume software products," he said during a visit to the Lisbon Expo world fair. Gates also said Microsoft's top priority is to make its software products simpler to use.

"Our top priority is our 'simplicity' initiative," he told an audience of information technology executives. He said the group was working on ways to simplify commands, storage of data, and "help" functions. "We have to make a big advance to bring in simpler approaches," he said. "There are still too many commands, too many ways of storing information," he added.

Reuters

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