Undoubtedly, one of the key aspects that drove Windows 7's success was the close collaboration between Microsoft and its partners, software developers, hardware manufacturers, OEMs, etc. On October 22nd, 2009, the Redmond company released an operating system that received rave reviews for compatibility and support for applications, devices and drivers, unlike Windows Vista.

All because of Microsoft’s work with partners in the ecosystem built around the Windows operating system, work that continues even at this point in time, seven months after the platform was launched, according to Tami Reller, corporate vice president and chief financial officer, Windows & Windows Live Division.

“With Windows 7, we've really had a very explicit goal of working closely with our partners throughout the planning and development process, which we, indeed, did. And the end result is, we had a lot of innovation at launch, a wide range of devices, across all categories, ready for launch, ready for holiday, ready for scale at holiday. And that innovation continues today,” Reller stated.

Speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch US Technology Conference last week, Reller revealed that Microsoft couldn’t be happier with the success of Windows 7, now the fastest selling OS in history. The platform’s over 100 million licenses sold in the first six months, combined with a satisfaction score of 94% among users are a direct result of the company’s collaboration with partners, on top of the work actually gone into the evolution of Windows.

“And, in fact, it's a good week to talk about innovation, because it's Computex in Taipei, and indeed there's been another round of great innovation announcements from our OEMs - and that's across consumer devices, across commercial devices, across slate devices, so a wide range of innovation coming out from our partners. So, we're very, very pleased with the health of the PC market overall, how Windows 7 is contributing to that health, as well as benefiting from that health, and most importantly that both our partners and our customers are benefiting from the momentum we're seeing with Windows 7,” Reller added.