Well, its not official yet, but Microsoft’s Windows 7 has now become the most widely used operating system. . . Windows 7 now has a strong 40.21% share of all desktop operating systems around the world whereas, the usage share of Windows XP has slipped to 38.64%. All this happened a couple of days back (in October). The rise in usage of Windows 7 and the drop in usage of Windows XP has been consistent since the time Windows 7 was first launched.
I don’t believe that, maybe in US or Europe, but not worldwide.
It is a worldwide average obviously:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-200910-201110
You can choice the country/continent.
Obviously, Africa and Asia are not yet Windows XP past Windows 7. But South America is seems to be getting close.
I doubt it, when it comes to “installed base” – it’s not the same as visibility in web stats!
For one, corporate desktops are probably under-represented in such statistics, not so visible. Or: users of fairly new Win7 machines ought to be among the most active on the web – most likely more than those who don’t bother to upgrade (and/or have weak connectivity, or almost none at all)
Also, Statcounter probably reflects a bit too much the usage on “global” sites – which are somewhat more likely to be visited by EN-capable and more affluent (etc., hence also more likely to have newer PC) people. Or at least that’s the only good reason I can see for discrepancy with my local web stats company, which probably better reflects the statistics of country/region-exclusive websites: http://ranking.pl/en/rankings/operating-systems.html – WinXP 51.4%, Win7 31.5% (vs. http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-PL-monthly-200910-201110 WinXP 48.8%, Win7 34.3)
Yes, just a difference of very few points – but that’s still in one of the more prosperous places; more than most. Worldwide, it should add up.
The discrepancy indeed seems to become more pronounced the more impoverished a given place is: http://ranking.by/en/rankings/operating-systems.html WinXP 68.2% & Win7 27.6%, vs. http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-BY-monthly-200910-201110 WinXP 63.5% & Win7 32.3%
…and Belarus is still quite decent.
Edited 2011-10-17 23:13 UTC
I would also concur that the web surfing statistics likely do not reflect the installed based.
Nevertheless, a few interesting twists:
i) Windows 7 has been globally encountered more often than Windows Vista for quite some time. In many areas, OS X is also more prevalent than Windows Vista.
ii) The shift to Windows 7 likely reflects hardware replacement…..the last systems build and sold with Windows XP (not as a downgrade from Vista) are roughly 3-1/2 to 4 years old. As application developers are likely coding for the more recent hardware/software platform, the older XP based systems are felt lagging (or simply breaks down and can’t be repaired).
iii) It would be more informative if the statistics could be broken down into the Home vs. Professional versions of Windows XP and the Home/Home Premium vs. Professional/Ultimate versions of Windows 7. This would tell general public vs. corporate base.
iv) The low frequency of encounters of Linux based systems is rather puzzling – maybe the Linux users don’t frequent the same sites as the rest of users?
It doesn’t matter much whether you look at the webstats from W3Schools, Net Applications, Statcounter or any other recogizable source.
Linux has fallen off the edge of the world.
Its trendline has flatlined.
The reasons are many.
FOSS programs are routinely ported to Windows or begin as native Windows apps.
No iTunes. No Netflix. No games.
No retail presence in the states.
Wamart.com alone stocks over 400 flavors of the Windows PC and laptop, none of them high-end product.
There is nothing to be gained by complaining about the methodology used to collect these stats.
Net Applications’ clients include Apple, Microsoft, the Moz Foundation, Opera, Red Hat, the New York Times, the WSJ and so on.
From the Net Applications FAQ.
And the first two aren’t really much of an issue, in most places; doesn’t change much. Similarly, people who are into games seem to be a minority… (especially when excluding PC gamers of flash/browser-based games)
Most people “work” out of the browser these days operating system has become a mute point.
i find it funny how quick people are to bash Linux over its desktop share
there are probably more Linux users out there than anything when you count Servers, Phones, Cars, TV’s set top boxes
If that were so simple, Linux should be rising sharply in desktops (what the topic here was… starting from desktop share of various Windows versions), since it doesn’t matter what runs the browser.
Also, when you count mainframes (financial transaction processing on which the world runs), there’s probably more people who “use” IBM MVS… Regarding TVs, did you even ever hear about TRON? (it might very well be the most widely deployed OS in existence) Cars are more often bound to have something following OSEK specs. Phones, Nokia S30 and S40.
A natural consequence of far from enthusiastic Vista reception – similar with WinMe, it quickly vanished (and IMHO, it wasn’t nearly so bad as popularly portrayed …as long as one remembered what it was: still 9x of course, but a slightly too big departure from 98 & 98SE for all the old tricks to work – instead, they often broke the system)
How do you come to that conclusion? In areas from Statcounter, broken per continent*, OSX virtually doesn’t exist in Africa, Asia, and South America. It’s visible in Europe, but there Vista still has over 2x more than OSX. In North America, Vista still has a bit more.
Only in Oceania OSX has a bit more than Vista (but then, Win7 has there almost 2x more than XP; clearly a very atypical area)
So “many areas” would basically mean from two to few countries…
*though such regional breakdown is really awkward – it shouldn’t follow geographical boundaries the way it does, but cultural and geopolitical ones.
So, for example, CIS countries in one group, counted separately from “Europe” (it would need some more politically correct name, EU or EEA being too narrow
). Canada & US in one, Latin America in another. Australia & New Zealand separate from the rest of Oceania (right now those two countries most likely totally dominate the results)
Not necessarily. I know of few places which hardly bothered with XP Home, for example – which seemed to be correlated with widespread piracy (no price difference there, and two versions would only complicate things?) – and they would be most likely also the places with much slower Win7 uptake.
This (and also institutional deployments) might play some role, but – look at the stats of Wikimedia, which I link nearby.
Generally – this, and your ii) point, probably boils down to people being quite satisfied with perfectly “good enough” OS which comes on their new PC (typically even even somewhat better than the Linux experience would be, especially considering familiarity factor; some negative experiences of Windows accepted as unavoidable part of computing, and its price being hidden)
I wonder how much of that is piracy? MSFT shot themselves in the foot when they got rid of the $50 HP upgrade option, as I saw many who had never bought a MSFT OS go legit over than deal, when it ended? suddenly it was “Razor 1911 all version pre activated” all over again. BTW Windows 7 is actually easier to pirate than XP! There is a version right now floating around the net that gives ALL versions, from start to ultimate, and it doesn’t even need a key!
so frankly it doesn’t surprise me that Windows 7 is #1, considering I can go on Craigslist right now and see 6 and 7 year old machines being sold with Win 7 Ultimate on them. That is the easy way to spot the pirate versions BTW, as they ALWAYS seem to go for the most expensive SKU, even when it makes no sense! Who would put a $400 OS on a machine worth maybe $100? stupid pirates that’s who.
I thought that was pretty damn quick.
[edit] Interestingly, the post-PC era, introduced with the iPad just half a year later, hasn’t really been an influence at all.
Edited 2011-10-17 18:14 UTC
At least 99% of the “post-PC” hype is nothing more than wishful thinking. There are the device makers who want to get in on Apple’s “sell less for more” business model, the 3rd-party devs who want to get in on the “charge $1.99 for functionality that’s been free on every other platform for ages” cash-grab, and hangers-on who desperately want to be seen as technology experts but lack the wits to understand the complexities of real computers & their operating systems.
It’s like the “biggest fish in a small pond” syndrome – except in this case, the fish steadfastly believe that their little tidal pool is actually the entire Atlantic Ocean.
almost in time for Windows 8 to come out. Our ITS department still does not officially support Windows 7 on our campus. They are targeting late spring…..useless.
I think IT departments got spoiled rotten by a decade of XP and IE6 – they could go as slowly as they wanted without worrying about compatibility with the latest and greatest software, or security patches. I’m personally glad that Windows is back to a fast release schedule, since that will force IT to work faster or get left behind.
It really depends on the environment. It’s not just a matter of slapping Windows 7 on a system and handing it to a user. That will work in small shops, but in enterprise environments they have to actually test software compatibility, but updated licensed for any software that no longer runs on the latest version of windows, etc. Plus, some types of businesses are heavily regulated with respect to computing environments. Drug companies come to mind.
I don’t like IT dragging their feet either, but it’s not always their fault. Sometimes it’s even developers or management. How many internal web apps are IE6 specific still? Developers (or management) are at fault for that. (I am a programmer for a living now, but used to be in IT)
I think the change in numbers has more to do with many people waiting 5 years to upgrade their computers. Most of these people intentionally skipped Vista. Still others bought a cheap netbook with xp on it and found it to be really slow and useless after a year or two.
Yeah, who wants a stable and reliable work computer anyway ?
We need 3D desktops running circles around us, we need skins everywhere so that no computer looks like the other, we need overblown apps with tons of plugins and daily updates, with new behaviour and new features and new bugs every next day.
And we need these damn IT people come here whenever we fuck it all up, and get it fixed in record time, because we’ve got some important work to do, mind you.
Well, no need to beg for it, where there already.
One of Windows great strengths is the deployment and management tools available to the system admninistrator.
Keep in mind that I work at a university. Students have been coming in the door with Windows 7 on their machines for 2 years now. It not an option for them. That’s all they can get. So like it or not the user base is going to have Windows 7 and Office 2010. I know that hurts some poor little IT people’s heads, but they need to suck it up. Somehow I manage with an install image of almost 75 Gigs for my department and I am only one person. Our ITS group has dozens of people. I am not feeling a lot of sympathy, sorry.
This one might still turn out to be a decade of Win7… (at least, I wouldn’t be too surprised)
But why forcing people into fast upgrades, which often bring debatable practical benefits, would be a good thing? (especially when many tools seem to morph into browser-accessed ones; or, more broadly, OS-agnostic)
Isn’t there any conspiracy behind the “always” 1% for Linux market?
Conspiracy? Like what?
Like the big companies always paying “under the hood” media circulations of the false information that Linux is %1 since 199x…
It’s barely higher, at 1.5%, in the statistics published by Wikimedia (which, as far as I can tell, has no incentive whatsoever to diminish Linux usage share; indeed, the Linux share there might be slightly higher than average), gathered from all of their projects (you know, Wikipedia and such)
http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2011-09/SquidRepor… (no, not 3.32% – look closer, this includes 1.83% of “Linux Android”; other interesting bit of info: Ubuntu has almost 1/3 of that, and an order of magnitude more than any other distribution)
Yes, we might speculate about effects similar to how corporate machines, and such, are less visible in web stats (which most likely still makes WinXP number one – heck, I wouldn’t be horribly surprised if this still makes XP a majority, as in “50+%”) – but even with all the public, school, or corporate here and there deployments, it shouldn’t be much higher. Probably 2% at most, maybe 3.
Though, interestingly, Steve Ballmer seemed to think not a long time ago ( http://www.osnews.com/story/21035/Ballmer_Linux_Bigger_Competitor_t… ) that it’s closer to 5 or 6%… (maybe most of deployed desktop Linux machines are really under-represented in web stats)
The BRIC countries are already planning widespread Linux-only use for government and education use.
Windows is already banned from schools and government offices in the Indian state of Kerala (33 million pop’n.)
President Putin has decreed that Russia government agencies must only use OSS by 2015.
China’s government will probably switch to Longsoon/Red Flag as a Wintel replacement.
I do hope Linux gets more presense.
When there are Linux drivers for a device that usually means others can more easily create drivers for their OS too.
For a community which speaks endlessly of “Free as in Freedom —
“the Cathedral vs. the Bazaar”
Linux seems to become the OS of choice for the authoritarian state.
The top-down approach. The mandate from on high. One size fits all.
While the “Peole’s Choice” is Windows.
In the Statcounter breakdown for the BRIC countries, Linux is on life-support.
So I guess it isn’t becoming the choice of the authoritatian state after all. That seems to be the market for large, american corporations like MS and Cisco. I guess freedom is not so important as long as you can make a good buck contributing to the oppression of the people.
Edited 2011-10-18 19:20 UTC
Statcounter is absolutely useless for measuring education or government use of Linux in BRIC countries. Why?
1) Internet access is often tightly controlled or totally blocked.
2) Hundreds of thousands of PCs used in schools and government are behind VPNs.
4) Linux browsers frequently masquerade as Windows browsers for website compatibility purposes.
Kerala alone has 1.6 million highly competent (Debian) Linux users graduating from high school each year. Most of them have never even used Windows. They are not going to switch to Windows when they join the workforce.
Ever heard of Android?
It is currently the market leader for smartphones and it did about 60 million activations over the last 3 months. Sure sounds like a strange kind of life support…
In terms of relevance, mobile devices are where you want your growth.
Only Microsoft cares about the desktop. And that’s because they have no hope in hell of getting anywhere with anything else.
As a proud user of Vista both at work and at home (Yes it actually works! And quite well if drive is properly defragged). This picture is much more interesting:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-200710-201110
Unfortunately the statistics start at au 2008, so we cannot see how Vista affected XP. However since Aug 2008, the graph is interesting. It is clearly vesible, that XP crowd tried out Vista but jumped back to XP just to jump back to Vista a month later, so (probably after SP1) the Vista adoption started to pick up but even SP2 didn’t convince people so started to fall since oct 2009. One more interesting note – since spring 2011, the Vista seems to be levelling off to 11%
Few more interesting things from the graph. other OSes have been decreasing to non-existance but lately started to raise again. Linux however is STILL at the bottom of the graph. LOL
Edited 2011-10-18 13:35 UTC
At the company I work for, contracters for IBM, we are still using Win XP. Though we got fairly new machines that originally came with Vista back in January, IBM removed it and installed XP. I do hope they install Win 7 on our machines at least in the computer room.
PC gaming is huge, to say it’s not is simply ignorant.
The Windows OS is not nearly as “bad” and “non-stable” as Linux users are constantly saying.
The Linux OS is not nearly as “good” and “stable” as Linux users are constantly saying.
Windows is a perfectly fine OS for the average user. Familiarity, vast support, low learning curve all help.
Nobody should be surprised Windows is the dominant OS — not because of some secret conspiracy against Linux, but simply because it’s a great OS for the average user. And the average user is what makes up the majority.
I’m a daily user of both Windows & Linux, and have been for many years. Linux does great in a few specific areas but as a desktop for the average user I find it to be crap most of the time due to constant breakage/incompatibilities and introduction of new bugs.
Linux users, I am one of you half the time so spare me your rhetoric and propaganda — I know better.
An OS is just like any other tool. You pick the one that best suits your needs. There isn’t a single OS that is blatantly better in all areas and for all users.
Who are those Linux users you talk about? As a Linux user myself, I’m fairly impressed with Win7. Fanboys of all colours will of course slander the competion, which sort of answers my question as to why you choose to slander Linux users.
Any Linux user who fits the description… Obviously my comments wouldn’t apply to level headed and reasonable Linux users.
Also, I haven’t said anything slanderous. I simply posted a few opinions based on observation.
Lastly, you implying I am some sort of Windows “fanboy” is a bit silly considering I use Linux half the time, by choice. And by the way, Linux isn’t remotely close to being Windows competition, at least in the desktop market.
Agreed. I would argue though that my experience tends to lean to the bias that Linux fanboys critique of Windows tends to be a lot more sophisticated when it comes to the technical aspects when compared to the Mac fanboy base. I’ve hung around in the two major bastions of Mac fanboys (Macrumors and Apple Insider) and they really pale in comparison to the kinds of arguments that used to take place on comp.os.linux.advocacy (COLA) back in my younger years. Were there uneducated fanboys on COLA? sure there were but they paled in significance when compared to the debates that would knuckle down into the nuances on how each of the kernels handled threads or how one development model allowed for faster technology adoption.
I’m all for a good debate but I tend to find that the discussions on forums these days tends to have the centre of gravity move towards the intellectual lightweight topics than really addressing the hard issues. OSNews around 5-7 years ago used to have some really good contributors – there was a great article that regarding FreeBSD, an ongoing debate between a person who works in the Windows market and a Solaris engineer/admin/programmer regarding scalability etc. Oh how I long for such discussions again on this website but I fear that such will never come back here again.
Edited 2011-10-18 21:09 UTC
I don’t think anyone with a clue would say it’s not. Heck, gaming is the one and only reason I even have XP still installed (sure sure, wine works but not always).
I don’t know who’s saying this. Windows been pretty stable since w2k and even more so in XP. Still not as stable as *nix, especially not on the server side, but not nearly has horrid as it used to be.
Depends what your metric for “good” is. It sure is stable though.
I’m not suprised but I’m not surpised Lady Gaga is popular either.
Are you sure massive marketing and and a serious OEM foothold has nothing to do with it?
Agreed.
Edited 2011-10-18 19:05 UTC
The level-headed Linux users aren’t saying it, but the Linux fanboys still are. I assume because admitting Microsoft has released anything worthwhile, stable, and usable is too much of a painful reality.
Good point about “good”. I disagree completely about the stable part however and will give an example. I use Linux for an htpc taking advantage of Nvidia’s VDPAU. It’s been completely stable for me. However, I know several people who have had horrible stability problems with the same setup, and some even with the same hardware (although different Linux distros). I also know plenty of people who deal with software breakage on a constant basis after “upgrading” their packages.
Linux stability is very dependent on what exactly you’re using the box for, which software you’ve installed, which distro you use, and how often you “upgrade” anything.
Are you not surprised Lady Gaga is popular because she has talent, has mass appeal, or because you believe millions of people have been brainwashed into thinking she’s a good artist?
Regarding Windows, …maybe part of the reason it’s so popular is because it’s actually earned it by being a useful and “good” desktop to it’s users.
I’m sure it does have an affect.. However, I’m also sure it’s much smaller than the conspiracy theorists would like you to believe.
Linux and Microsoft is not David and Goliath. Linux has a ways to go before it can call itself David.
At the end of the day, if Windows suits your needs best, use it. If Linux suits your needs best, use it. I don’t see why that’s such a hard concept for some people to accept. I personally don’t and won’t pledge allegiance to any OS. I will, and will continue, to use what works best for me, for the task at hand. If that means using multiple OS’s, and it does in my case, then that’s what I’ll do.
Let’s be honest : all current desktop OSs suck in some critical areas. This is why lots of computer geeks keep switching desktop OSs out of insatisfaction, and why this whole “post PC” thing is irritating to many instead of just being laughable.
I really like Win 7. They did a lot of stuff the right way (Vista is for me like Windows ME if you know what i mean). Face the facts, XP is outdated and it was time for a proper successor. I encountered several hardware realated issues (lacking drivers support and so on).. even on new hardware (Ugh, Serial I/O Cards). A few options that never worked for me on XP also never worked for me on Win 7 (System recovery). For my taste also too much eyecandy and the new network manager is driving me nuts.
In the end.. pretty much the same when we switched from 98 to 2k.. aint it? Was it better?
Nonetheless the Systems with Win7 usually run quite stable if you use a fresh non “OEM packed bullshit preinstalled” version and i think for the customer OS market its the right choice if you ain´t an Apple fanboy.
I do like Linux Desktops but only if i dont have to support them. Explaining how to fix issues to customers is just so.. complicated. I run Ubuntu 8.04 on my Laptop for work (and im pretty much the only one using Linux in my company) and i love it. Everything i need from Windows for work is virtualized in KVM. Since im working in the technical department i also rely on a lot of tools for diagnosis, network and system recovery which come straight out of the box without searching the web for a “free” and working application.
Oh btw: I do love shellscript.
… i dont mind batch either…
But i do hate powershell.
If anything else besides Maclindows X86-64 will have a real chance on the market for the next decades…
Ugh.. If this is again some stupid Linux and Windows war… please consider following:
Windows is quite the thing when it comes to desktops and it is also “the” OS that brought some usability to them. There is more than just OEM and marketing reasons behind it that it is widespread used.
On the other hand i laugh at everyone saying that Linux isnt used by the end-consumer or anything else except servers. Most of the consumer electronics have a Linux behind them. It might be your Router, your TV, your HD recorder or your overexpensive fridge with an 10″ Display and LAN connection.
Yeah, you could use (and it is also used) WinCE for these applications, but then again, you have pretty much an overturned profile on how many Windows Desktops are in use compared to Linux based Desktops if you get my point.
It’s pretty obvious that 10 years on Linux hasn’t gotten anywhere, Mac grew a tiny bit, and for 90%+of computer users nothing has changed, Windows is still a monopoly and the only real choice available for millions of users. Android will be an option for business when it has Maya, Photoshop, HP HelpDesk, Sharepoint (equivalent), AD (Samba4), Gui based SQL Server/management tools. All the crap that’s available on Windows that isn’t available anywhere else. I’m just listing things I can think of off the top of my head. There’s BILLIONS more apps that don’t run on linux and wine isn’t an option unless your company can get paid corporate support for it (and the app running on it specifically).
Edited 2011-10-20 06:52 UTC
Having vast majority of the market isn’t an offence, illegal monopolistic practices are (not saying that MS got any real punishment, but…)
And, what, Android and such very desktop-oriented stuff like Maya, Photoshop, …? What the hell for?
(BTW, Maya was from the start and is a *nix app, many people don’t seem to realize that…)
BILLIONS? (presumably in use) That would mean every PC user (around 2 billion now, IIRC) would have at least one (actively used) written specifically for them, on average, which is almost certainly not the case.
Living in a world of fantasies won’t improve the situation…
Edited 2011-10-25 00:03 UTC