Approximately three years ago, we shipped the first version of C# along with VS 2002 and .NET Framework 1.0.  Early on, there was a lot of concern about how quickly we could get broad distribution of the framework so that application developers could reduce or eliminate the need to redistribute it with their applications.

Our marketing team tracks this kind of thing regularly.  I thought it would be valuable to share some of the recent data, which shows very broad penetration of the framework:

• More than 120M copies of the .NET Framework have been downloaded and installed using either Microsoft downloads or Windows Update
• More than 85% of new consumer PCs sold in 2004 had the .NET Framework installed
• More than 58% of business PCs have the .NET Framework preinstalled or preloaded
• Every new HP consumer imaging device (printer/scanner/camera) will install the .NET Framework if it’s not already there – that’s 3M units per year
• Every new Microsoft IntelliPoint mouse software CD ships with the .NET Framework

--Scott