Like McDonald's, Microsoft will soon be able to boast "more than 1 billion served."

CEO Steve Ballmer told the financial analysts and reporters gathered at the company's Redmond headquarters this morning that total Windows installed base will exceed 1 billion sometime during the 2008 fiscal year.

"By the end of our fiscal year 08 there will be more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles, which to me is kind of a mind-numbing concept," Ballmer said.

(A company spokesman clarified earlier that the 1 billion figure includes all versions of Windows shipped by the company, as well as pirated copies.)

In tracking other metrics of the company's performance during the last five years, Ballmer noted that the company has doubled its profits and nearly doubled its revenues and that it boasts the highest operating income of any company outside of the financial services and energy sectors.