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Yesterday, Microsoft communications head Frank Shaw put up a post on The Official Microsoft Blog rattling off some numbers regarding many of Microsoft’s products. The intention was obviously to lend some perspective to some of the negative coverage Microsoft has been getting recently. There’s no way around it, the numbers are impressive. And I think it’s smart for Shaw (and Microsoft) to do things like this. That said, I wish Shaw would just come out and say what he really means, rather than literally letting the numbers speak for themselves. Sure, most major company executives will never directly call out their rivals in such a public forum. But as we’ve seen recently with things like Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Thought On Flash , speaking more directly about an issue can rally your base. (And, to be clear, Jobs wasn’t as straightforward and frank as he could have been either.) But again, most execs will only be passive-aggressively confrontational. So let’s decode what Shaw really means with his numbers: 150,000,000 Number of Windows 7 licenses sold, making Windows 7 by far the fastest growing operating system in history. What he really means : While our rivals are getting all the hype in the press, and people keep blogging about us “dying”,? we’re selling 7 copies of our OS every second . Keep this number in mind when you read the next group of stats. 7.1 million Projected iPad sales for 2010. 58 million Projected netbook sales in 2010. 355 million Projected PC sales in 2010. What he really means : Remember that 150 million number? Yeah, the iPad can suck it. And about the iPad and netbooks killing the PC — I have 355 million reasons why that’s not happening anytime soon. Did I mention we’ve sold 150 million licenses for those PCs?

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