Win 7 up, Mac OS X down in market share wars

The latest operating system market-share figures are in, and the news is good for fans of Windows 7, and ho-hum for Mac OS X aficionados. Since its release last October, Windows 7's star has been steadily rising — and this July it passed the lamentable Windows Vista to become the world's number-two OS, according to stats from …

[Anonymous Coward]

"Windows 7 fuels a PC-buying surge." ??????????

Excuse me?

There appears to have been an outbreak of cart before horse here.

People decided it was safe to buy new PCs again.

They had been holding off in case Windows 7 was anything like as bad as Vista.

So in a sense the surge was down to Windows 7.

But only in a very twisted kind of way.

Have a nice day.

[Anonymous Coward]

BWAHAHAHAHAH

Windows FTW!!1! Sorry fanbois, youre shiny fruit-bearing kit is doomed to irrelevance and proper standards-based PCs prevail.

[Anonymous Coward]

w1n 4 da w1111nzzzzz loloxxxorz

OS prevalence currently isn't a contest of skill or brilliance you know.

Windows has higher market share purely through it's price (you don't have to spend the best part of a grand to use it) and the fact that microsoft will destroy any vendor that doesn't ensure ALL PCs they sell come pre-loaded with their shite. (Not to mention their dodgy "training plans"

Also, there are billions of people out there using windows that aren't even aware there are any other operating systems (if indeed they know what an OS is) so migrating away from windows isn't something that will occur to them even if they hate it.

Still windows is the best because it you use it right?

[william henderson 1]

"Windows has higher market share purely through it's price........"

using that logic, i presume that linux doesn't feature on those graphs because its way up there beyond 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

Robber barons in modern times.

"Windows has higher market share purely through it's price (you don't have to spend the best part of a grand to use it) and the fact that microsoft will destroy any vendor that doesn't ensure ALL PCs they sell come pre-loaded with their shite."

Not the price. Windows 7 is often more than a half of the price of the whole machine and thus MS-tax is almost 50%. Extremely expensive piece as the production cost for it is ~100 developers and ~$2 per machine in immediate costs.

100 coders, but 50M copies sold every year, so if we count 50c/copy to developers, that makes 25M to coders, 250 000/coder/year. Sounds about right.

And MS is abusing the monopoly by selling the license (el cheapo version, not even media is included) at $100, nice profit margin of 40 000%. Not bad, isn't it?

In any sector where there are competition, profit margins are somewhere between 50 to 100%. Obviously there is none where MS is operating.

[Jim_aka_Jim]

(you don't have to spend the best part of a grand to use it)

that's very true. But it does help.

[Anonymous Coward]

Proper standards-based

You really did it!! You put "Windows" and "standards" in the same sentence!!

Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Standard-based made me larf

Here's 0 pence, kid - go buy yourself a proper operating system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey kid

Does Mum know you're using the PC today while she's out shopping?

I may be using "shiny fruit-bearing kit" that is "doomed", but I at least had enough sense to weigh up my choices and not just be brainwashed by Steve "Del-Boy" Ballmer.

When you grow up and move up to big school you will learn that adults make choices based on things called "criteria". Criteria are reasons they wish to own something. The item that fits the most "criteria" tends to be the one they buy.

[Mick F]

Another OS X surge

or not.

Skeletor will not be happy!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always tell when the schools are off

Judging by the immature comments seen lately.

Wonder how many of those copies of Win XP are running under Parallels? I keep a copy for an old CAD system that I still like. And most of my customers IT systems are still running XP too. Not seen a single copy of Vista or Win7 yet in my customers corporate environments. But have seen a few Macbook Pro's and IMacs creeping in. Probably not really representative of the wider picture though.

@A/C20:25 "proper standards-based PCs prevail." That really cracked me up, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, LMAO. Nice to know that satire is not dead.

[CheesyTheClown]

How about bootcampers?

I recently bought a MacBook for its size, specs, design etc... immediately, I made my OS X partition only big enough to install BootCamp and installed Windows 7. Other than one time when I thought it would be cool to try GarageBand with my USB mAudio keyboard, I haven't booted OS X since.

Mac is a great machine, I just haven't figured out why I would want to bother with OS X. (oh... and I ported a major web browser to OS X and wrote about 20 drivers for OS X, so I'm not a noob)

[mittfh]

Linux?

So if they're counting iOS, will Android be counted separately or lumped together with Linux? I imagine if Google get Andoid or Chrome OS running on iPad clones, Linux will start advancing towards 2%.

Meanwhile, on the Windoze scene, what percentage are using Win 2k or (heaven forbid) NT 4 / Win 9x?

[famousringo]

Actually, they're not counting iOS

The end of the article was a little misleading. Net Applications splits iOS into iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. So 0.7% really is the iPhone's share, not iOS's share. But starting this month they're only revealing the top 5 OSes for free, so we don't know how big Android, iPod Touch, or iPad are anymore.

IIRC, last month had the iPad around 0.17%, Android around 0.15%, and iPod Touch around 0.11% web usage. So iOS as a whole is getting close to Linux in usage, though probably still a ways to go to beat Linux + Android. However, since iPad usage has been growing much faster than Android, it won't be long before iOS beats Linux + Android.

And that shows the limits of web usage as a metric. Android devices are selling a lot faster than iPads, yet iPad is seeing a lot more usage than Android on the web. It's a useful metric, but it's not interchangeable with installed base.

[Anonymous Coward]

2k is more like NT SP7

"Meanwhile, on the Windoze scene, what percentage are using Win 2k or (heaven forbid) NT 4 / Win 9x?"

Why not, especially the NT runs on hardware none of modern OSes would run. It's also much, much smaller and more reliable than XP (or any other MS product) ever will be. Less code, less holes, more reliable.

Also it don't have IE embedded into kernel so none of the modern viruses works in it (and very rare old ones, either), very safe compared to XP or 7.

You think OSes have last usage date like vegetables?

NT almost got USB support, MS-politics removed it at last minute from SP6 and directX-version wasn't updated on purpose, because selling 2k was more important than supporting old version. Nothing new there. 2k was actually NT SP7, all features it had, were supposed to be in NT but money won, as always in MS-land. (Active directory is the official explanation but that's again on of those features MS-software are full of and no-one uses because they don't work reliably.)

Naming 2k to NT5 was serious bluff, there wasn't anything in it to justify major version number and that was painfully obvious when XP came out: Major change was the color scheme and re-shuffling the UI to even more stupid what it was. Happened again with Vista (except the DRM borking the whole system to pieces) _and again_ with Windows 7, even then when the dialog boxes themselves are obviously the same as in NT, 10 years earlier. Only several layers of crud on top of them and re-shuffled menu structure.

More designed to sell mandatory user training than anything else, structure is getting only worse on every version.

[Sean Timarco Baggaley]

Not this bollocks again...

Including corporate users in statistics like these is almost dishonest.:

The vast majority of Windows boxes sit in office buildings. This is not a target market for Apple, but it *is* the target market for Microsoft who rely primarily on OEM and corporate licenses rather than selling direct to the public for much of their income. Therefore, these figures tend to make them look like they're still stomping all over their rivals.

But Apple's Mac sales have been pretty good for some time now. How can this be if OS X's share seems to be almost constant? The answer is that many newcomers to Macs will likely have a bunch of legacy apps—probably games—and will thus be running Windows *as well as* OS X—either in a VM, or in Boot Camp.

This is inevitably going to skew the figures somewhat. It takes time to make the transition from one platform to another.

There is no reliable data for Apple's share of the *consumer* market, but empirical evidence from developers suggests it is rather better than the figures quoted in the article imply.

Similarly, many boxes running Linux-based operating systems are "headless" and unlikely to be used for browsing websites.

*

What *is* clear from these figures is that the traditional PC form-factors aren't going anywhere just yet.

[Mark 65]

@STB

I'll agree that it will definitely be more interesting to split out corporate, SMB, and home licenses for a clearer picture but I also believe that the stats will be reasonably representative of trends.

Apple (I am a user) is always hamstrung by its cost. I genuinely prefer OSX to Win7 and I want a quad core but Apple's prices are just too damn high. This was the same when considering a first computer for my elderly parents. I'd have preferred OSX because I believe they'd have found the ease of use and integration between mail, iphoto, imovie etc. to be great. I wasn't going to hamstring them with a GBP800 vs 400 cost though. Linux bit the dust as nobody would be able to give them tuition or assistance (I'm half a World away) which left Windows 7. It wasn't my first choice but I believe it's sufficiently secure and usable for them (normal AV caveats etc) and others will be able to assist them. Local library training courses will also pretty much be Windows only.

I think this sort of thing is reflective across the market - Apple is nice but expensive and Windows is now "good enough" after the Vista debacle. Linux requires you to be keen to learn it and have the available help on hand.

[James Hughes 1]

Should have tried Ubuntu

My AP has it on his Acer Revo, I gave him a few minutes training (how to start Chrome, email, openoffice, F-spot), and he did the rest.

And you can remote desktop in (as you can with other OS of course) if you need to help out for any reason.

So, Aver Revo £149 +£0 for the OS. Bargain.

[Paul M 1]

Possibly..

except this report is based upon web hits and I doubt that many people running Parallels are going to be using it's IE to surf the net.

Also, point taken about the corporate systems but it doesn't really change anything does it? It still means all those people are users of Windows, albeit not necessarily voluntary ones. Trust me - we've gone Vista at my place so I know *very* well the meaning of involuntary [shudder]

[westlake]

The plural of anecdote is not data

>>There is no reliable data for Apple's share of the *consumer* market, but empirical evidence from developers suggests it is rather better than the figures quoted in the article imply.<<

"Empirical" or simply "anecdotal?"

Net Applications builds estimates of market share from 160 million hits a month to mass market web sites.

Unless you can explain why the Mac user isn't surfing the web when he boots into OSX, you have a problem.

[Wibble]

Some Mac users run lots of windwos

On this here Mac, I've over a dozen virtual machines for testing various windows and browser configurations.

Therefore only 7% of my Mac is running OSX, compared to the 93% of Windows operating systems running.

Can I have a house-point for getting this statistics malarkey?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course...

...if OSX was actually sold as a seperate OS instead of verboten for anything but Apple machines the figures might well be different. Or not. Nobody will ever know

[Giles Jones]

It is

OSX is sold as a separate OS for people upgrading their OS.

I bought Leopard, I bought Snow Leopard.

I expect to install another OS soon too. So 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7. Mac users keep their machines longer. I've had this Macbook over two years now and I'm not feeling the need to upgrade yet.

[Graham Lockley]

@Mr Baggaley

Please reread the article, quote

"Although no web-based market-share data is bulletproof, Net Applications methodology is better than most: it aggregates information from around 160 million visits per month to the 40,000 websites it monitors."

Now I dont imagine many 'new' OSX users feel a need to run an XP VM just to browse the web ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Majority of people visiting microsoft.com are using XP, surprise?

"it aggregates information from around 160 million visits per month to the 40,000 websites it monitors.""

How many of these are MS-owned sites? And how many gathers single hits in a month?

"160M hits" and "40 000" websites say nothing about the distribution of the hits. 100M hits into one MS-site and 59M to other MS-site and the rest evenly to the rest of the 39 998 sites would give this kind of result, easily.

IE goes to mothership every time you start it so the site it goes, get's huge amount of hits without any user intervention, hardly a sign of active usage. Hundreds of millions every month so it alone skewes the results into "meaningess data" department. Or marketing BS, choose your choice.

It essentially tells us that majority of people visiting microsoft.com are using XP, nothing more. Hardly surprising.

[Giles Jones]

Windows licence count

I wonder how many of these Windows licences are actually in use?

If you buy a Mac you're almost certainly are going to use OSX. If you buy a Windows PC you might be formatting it and installing Linux or your existing Windows licence.

There must be two Windows licences for every PC out there.

[SkippyBing]

All of them

seeing as they were counted because they visited a website.

You did read the article didn't you, or is that just your standard response to a Windows market share article?

[westlake]

Net Applications Counts Users Not Licensees

>> If you buy a Windows PC you might be formatting it and installing Linux or your existing Windows licence.<<

You might.

But there is no compelling reason to believe that you will.

[Geoff Campbell]

Read the article.

The figures are based on real world usage of OSs on machines used to visit web sites. Phantom copies are not included.

GJC

[Desktop Mobile]

Price

For the majority of the general public who nip out to buy a PC/Laptop from their local store Apple Macintosh etc is just too expensive for the box they want to use for email/shopping and not the same as the box little Johnny use at school.

Most of the users of this site of course make choices based on different criteria...

Re standards I know that IE is all does not adhere but Windows will do pretty much anything you want without much effort where the machines from Cupertino are not always so obliging.

[Anonymous Coward]

No effort at all, just need to buy a program which does it for you

"Re standards I know that IE is all does not adhere but Windows will do pretty much anything you want without much effort"

Yes, you just need to buy a program which does it for you, you can't do anything productive with standard tools. Not even run a simple shell script.

" where the machines from Cupertino are not always so obliging."

Same applies to Apple, except that standard Unix-tools _are_ there (or at least available, for free) if you just can use those. Not such luck with MS-products.

[thesykes]

and, in the real world...

.... 99% of users wouldn't know what a shell script is,let alone have the need to use one.

The vast majority of home PC's are used to write the odd letter, send an email or two, browse the net and store photos off the digital camera. A large chunk of business PC's will be so locked down the users can't do much more than logon and use the three apps that the IT department want them to use.

Some people have large disposable incomes and can afford a Mac, others do not and cannot justify twice the price for a Mac, when a Windows PC does all that they need to do.

[David Neil]

Am I missing something?

2 posters have noted people may have a spare XP image running on an Apple machine, but unless they used that XP image whilst browsing one of the monitored sites it wouldn't be counted.

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you say that?

"Possibly the dullest chart in Reg history shows Windows and Mac market-share stability"

It is, perhaps, the most significant chart that could ever substantially signify the existential preponderance of affirmative transcendentalism! Can't you see it clearly shows that eternal balance of wind and water, ying and yang, fire and ice, red and blue! Both firm and unyielding, each nearly a perfectly matched exactly by mostly the other! I have seen no other chart which so perfectly illustrates both the harmony and strife of our humble essence.

Now then, if you'll excuse me, I have to attend to a 5 foot purple mouse out by the pool that's drinking my martini and humming "row your boat" rather loudly.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC 22:48

You are 'amanfromars' and I claim my £5.

[Badwolf]

More choices

My Iphone uses an OS, my HTC uses an OS and seeing as these are effectively hand held computers, I think they are worthy of inclusion into any "Market Share" debate.

As to the Windoze thing - it always reminds me of the old saying "Eat dung, 20 trillion flies can't be wrong"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sold"? "Market share"?

"according to stats from the market watchers at Net Applications."

First you make a stat which includes all the OSes "sold" and then you claim that XP has a majority of "market share".

How convinient. No mentioning at all that all of OEM Windowses are force fed and not "sold" by any sensible meaning of the word: If you want the hardware, you pay MS-tax, because the hardware manufactures pays it no matter what. And this goes by the manufacturer, not by the model: Either manufacturer sells a MS-OS with every machine or none, there are no-betweens.

Only retail, full version are genuinely sold and those are measured in single thousands, not millions.

Same applies to Apple, too, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use windows 7 but

I run it on Mac hardware. :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Geeks are in the minority

Enthusiasts who upgrade regularly and keep on top of the game with the latest 'must have' gadgets are in the minority, despite how we think we rule the market and drive the companies on to satisfy us.

The truth is the market is kept afloat by the masses, people like my mum who buy their PC from PC World and take the latest Norton offer. She orders groceries and emails me pictures of mice looking cute. She has no need for Windows 7 and won't want to upgrade, she only got rid of the Windows 95 PC 2 years ago and I can see XP being around for a long while yet. My parents also drive a 15 year old Nissan, they've had it since new and if it ain't broke, why flog it to buy something new?

[Psymon]

Interesting

I liked the predictable symmatry of the Vista and 7 lines on the graph.

It makes perfect sense, since upgrading from Vista to 7 is incredibly easy and painless (I've done it manually on about 30 machines now) so to watch the vista decline asymetrically match 7s growth is statistically pleasing.

@Gile Jones

As Graham pointed out, the stats were from people browsing the web, so these are OS installs that are being actively used, the number of CALs sold is irrelevent.

@Mr Baggaley

While I agree that seeing just home usage stats would be an interesting sideline, there seems to be a mythology propagated amongst fanbois that large corporations are somehow ham-strung into using Windows by evil licensing agreements, and that if we could only shake off these shackles of legacy compatibility we would immediately leap onto Ubuntu and OSX.

I hate to break it to you, but we sysadmins actually know what we are doing.

While I welcome the last near-decade or so of healthy competition from alternate OSs, Microsoft haven't been resting on their laurels. Ask yourself why young, dynamic and extremely profitable companies like Google, who have a vested dislike of MS, still use Windows in the vast majority of their offices?

Microsofts LDAP (active directory), SMB and Kerberos implementations are now light years ahead of anything offered in Linux or Unix flavours, meaning that if you're not using a Windows domain controller, you're actually losing a great deal of functionality, flexability, and even security.

Unix LDAP doesn't natively support computer accounts, and has no concept of domains - in a complex corporate environment where the computer needs to access secure resources without anyone logging in (automated installs, updates, secure lab machine only resources, automated RADIUS) this is essential.

On top of this, other services such as DHCP, DNS, certificate services, file server security and print management are all extremely well integrated, feature laiden, easy to set up, and a doddle to manage.

Most importantly, Mr Baggaley, let us not forget that it is us, the sysadmins that keep the world turning, not the fanbois sat at home play WoW in Wine, so I think you'll find the corporate figures considerably more important than home usage on many levels

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Sean Timarco Baggaley

Oh come on how many people who buy a Mac and bought it because of its ease of use are going to bother vitualising another OS, they will be a very small minority indeed, almost insignificant i suspect.

“vast majority of Windows boxes sit in office buildings”

No allot of Windows boxes sit in office buildings not the vast majority, there’s millions of home Windows installs out there. The figures really don’t support your argument especially as millions of those ‘office’ installs that you refer to won’t even be allowed internet access so they won’t even be counted.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: No effort at all, just need to buy a program which does it for you

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 both ship PowerShell by default. It's a free download for XP and Vista users. It is supremely capable

[DEAD4EVER]

windows and osx

sorry but appels osx is just and exspensive rip off with there hardware computers and it isnt suitable for games unlike windows. and windows is the most popular because its easy to use osx is for work mainly end of. i was with xp for years and i think personally its had its day its time for people to get up to date with things. and stop using old crappy hardware. my mother bought a new pc the other day and its lighting fast 4gigs of ram gt320 graphics core 2 quad 1tb hard drive its brill it even beats my spec system buy a mile. and plays games pretty well. and she only paid under 700 around er 650 or 670 not sure lol with a monitor and antivirus protection to. unlike apple where you pay over 1000 pound for a system and probably will have to pay abit for antivirus because you still need protection even if its apple.

one last thing if you cant understand me then stfu i dont give a beep

[The BigYin]

@DEAD4EVER

What prices I have seen reported for Apple's OS X upgrades list it as cheaper than the comparable upgrades for Windows 7. I do not believe you can buy OS X stand-alone, I could be wrong.

Apple hardware may not be suited for games, but it is more suited for other applications (e.g. graphic design). You pick the tool for the job based on evidence, not ideology.

Actually, any modern windowing system is about as easy to use as another other one. Familiarity, of course, will make one *appear* easier than another to any given individual. I use Windows (XP, 7, and Server), Ubuntu and OS X; they're all pretty much the same although the do have their individual strengths.

If old hardware works, then it works. Why should it be retired if it can still fulfil its function? If it works, or can be re-purposed, then use it. I certainly can't afford a new PC every couple of years and I am gainfully employed! I suspect you are not working and have your needs met by Mummy and Daddy, your attitude will change when you have to provide for yourself.

I am pleased to hear that your mother got such a good system, does she play games? Or did you spec it for her? For day-to-day use you can get a perfectly good system for about half the price you quote (less if you opt to re-use hardware or a different form-factor).

MS is a dead-duck in the Smart-whatever market. That it ruled by Symbian, iOS, and a legion of Linux distros. So if the world does shift from the desktop to that kind of arena, then we could see the landscape change. Which would be good. Competition is good. Struggle is good. For too many years IT has been stagnating in a monoculture. It needs to diversify, if only to save itself.

----

"one last thing if you cant understand me then stfu i dont give a beep"

Well, you should. ifyouexPressyOurop1n1oninaw-ayth-at1shardtounder5t4nd then people will struggle to follow your opinion. Any valid points you may make will be ignored and simply add to the noise.

[Wibble]

OSX "upgrade" version

The OSX Snow Leopard upgrade version is a full version. It's licence may not be, but the software is.

Mac users have always bought a licence - when they bought their original Mac.

[Blain Hamon]

Lies, damn lies, and server logs

I could drone on and do fanboyism and reinterpret the stats, but really, who wants to hear more of that, especially from me?

No, what I want to see is a virus or worm or other malware whose sole purpose is to modify agent identifier strings. Not even to make those XP machines to claim they're Macs or Linux systems. No, what I want to see would be news coverage like:

Net Applications reported that almost overnight, XP and Vista market share dropped down to single digits, while a sudden rise in Pants OS market share, using the latest "I Can't Believe It's Not Browser" client, version one point badgers.

[Borgcubed]

Macs are just too expensive to justify cos

I have been looking for the best bang for buck vs lightweight laptops this week and really fancied a Mackbook pro or Macbook Air especially because I heard about bootcamp (in case I didn't like Mac OS). However I just couldn't justify the cost and got a nice 13" W7 64 bit i3 (yes Ultra Mobile I know isn't 'as powerful') with 4GB DDR3 memory and 500GB HD for half the price. It weighs only 300g more than macbook air.

I think Apple want their customers to be elitist though. If too many people had Macs they wouldn't be 'Special'. So if Apple ever want to truly take on PCs and Windows they must simply drop their price - end of.