Microsoft's Steve Ballmer says "400 million Windows 7 licenses sold"

So much for not keeping pace, huh? We heard back in June of last year that Microsoft had blown through 150 million Windows 7 licenses, and just a few months later, it had surpassed 240 million.

At this year's Worldwide Partner Conference, head honcho Steve Ballmer took great pleasure in announcing that said figure has now swollen to beyond 400 million in under two years. Not surprisingly, that makes Win7 the fastest-selling operating system in history, and Tami Reller - corporate vice president and chief financial officer of Windows and Windows Live - made clear that it's "the path to Windows 8."

The outfit also announced that 100 million copies of Office 2010 have flown off the shelves since launch, and while no one really came out and said it, we're counting on seeing a Windows 8 build at the BUILD event this fall. Head on past the break for a whole heaping of (deserved) self-congratulations.