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Desktops (Apple) Microsoft Operating Systems Windows Apple

Windows 7 Overtakes XP, OSX Struggles To Beat Vista 540

Posted by samzenpus from the top-of-the-list dept.
judgecorp writes "Latest market share figures show the difference between perception and reality. Windows 7 just nudged past Windows XP with both around the the 43 percent mark. OS X and Windows Vista divide the rest of the spoils, with all versions of OS X only just adding up to a little more than the failed Windows version, according to data from Netmarketshare."
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Windows 7 Overtakes XP, OSX Struggles To Beat Vista More

Windows 7 Overtakes XP, OSX Struggles To Beat Vista

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  • Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Missing.Matter ( 1845576 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:34AM (#41212941)
    Is it just me, or are more and more blatant flamebait stories reaching the front page recently? What actual relevant, meaningful news is contained in this story?

    Seriously, why not go full on flame and top it off with a comment on Linux's desktop share, so we can include them in the flamefest that's sure to follow? Or I guess maybe I just did that for you... you're welcome Slashdot editors.

    • Not just you, more flamebait and troll articles, the more pageviews for the advertisers. I thought it was getting blatant when UID's hit arround 900,000. Not necessarily a bad thing, the demo coming here has changed considerably over the years, slashdot has changed with them, now Windows on the other hand seems to change for change's sake. Recently our network at work, because the client workstations were all XP machines allows the clients to map drives to two different directories on the Win2000 server on

    • "What actual relevant, meaningful news is contained in this story? "

      None. The idea that new sales/installs somehow "compete" with existing installs is bullshit and anyone propagating it should be treated to a kerbie..

      New PC sales reflect both "new vs new" competition and "fleet replacement" where it only makes sense to replace an OS such as XP with a succcessor because of the APPS.

      • Re:Flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @02:03PM (#41214839) Homepage

        I dunno. Apple and it's users seem entirely full of themselves. It's nice to put things into perspective and point out how Apple is occassionally a failure. It's not infallible. It has some rather spectacular failures to it's name and it yet may lose the current platform war. There's precedent for it.

    • Nothing new. Slashdot has for a long time tempered interesting articles with red flag bullshit. I consider these articles to be a honey pot for people wanting to vent and the nutters who feel its useful to respond.

      You're the anomaly here. You go find a useful story to comment on. I'll distract the idiots.

      Hey guyz! The operating system you prefer is crap because it's menus are different, and I believe it's cost to be way different to the OS that has become my religion.

    • Re:Flamebait (Score:5, Funny)

      by SEE ( 7681 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @03:59PM (#41215725) Homepage

      Is it just me, or are more and more blatant flamebait stories reaching the front page recently?

      Yeah, it's really gotten bad the last 13 years.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @05:22PM (#41216369)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Year of the Linux Desktop (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:36AM (#41212951)

    Next year...

  • 2012 Camry over takes 2009 Camry. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:36AM (#41212953)

    Meanwhile Porsche and BMW 'have' to split the rest of the vehicles.

    Apple is rich. As in very, very, very rich. Something tells me they really don't care.

  • Worldwide? Probably not (Score:5, Informative)

    by A Friendly Troll ( 1017492 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:36AM (#41212955)

    OSX isn't very used outside the western world. So, I guess it has a lower worldwide marketshare, whereas Linux might have a higher one.

    • For example, Poland:
      * Android: 1.45%
      * Linux: 0.82% (yeah, obviously with Android excluded)
      * OS X:: 0.73%
      * iOS: 0.69%

      As a kid, I had access to one of first PC XTs in Poland, and after all those years, I have yet to see a live Mac (ssh / hackintosh excluded). So I find even that 0.73% value dubious.

      • Re:Worldwide? Probably not (Score:5, Informative)

        by ACS Solver ( 1068112 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @11:46AM (#41213567)

        I can relate. I lived in Latvia until a year ago, and while that's a Western country by now, it's also one with much lower income levels than the "proper" Western countries, besides, the whole free market thing is kinda new there.

        Thinking about the previous 10 years or so, I think I had seen people with Macs something like 3 or 4 times total. Most people I talked to didn't even know Macs existed, although starting in 2005-2006 I met a fair amount of people who had heard of Linux as an alternative option. After moving to Sweden, I literally saw more Macs being used on my first day than I had seen in Latvia, ever.

        Also puts me in an interesting position where I'm a knowledgable computer geek and have used many OSes, but not OS X. The last time I used a Mac was with Mac OS 8, and even that was brief. I think I should just install a Hackintosh at home one weekend because I am curious to play with OS X, to see how it works and whether I'll find it as easy as it's supposed to be.

        Oh, and if anyone is curious to the reason why Macs are essentially non-existent in Latvia, it's simple - prices. Macs there cost as much as anywhere else, which in terms of Latvian incomes places them firmly in the luxury item category (especially until a few years ago). Together with the essentially ubiquitous piracy among privately owned computers, it makes the idea of buying a Mac very strange. Case in point, with iPads. Having just checked the prices, an iPad 3 with 16 GB Wi-Fi only in Latvia costs 339 lats, the same with 4G costs 425 lats (not including data plan). MacBooks start at 895 lats. The average monthly income in 2011 after taxes for those employed in Latvia was 330 lats (about 600 USD at today's rate). Puts things into perspective.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      StatCounter has a nice selection where you can drill down to continents or even single countries, they put OS X at 14% market share in the US, 7% worldwide. Vista is at 12% and 8% respectively, so not a bad comparison in either case. Not really surprising though, since they're expensive computers you'd probably find in the rich parts of the world. Unfortunately you can't get figures for Linux since it gets lumped into the "other" category, it barely registers in Germany which is typically extremely open sou

  • It's all about the mojo (Score:3, Funny)

    by nysus ( 162232 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:37AM (#41212961)

    OS X has it, Windows doesn't. And I think Win 8 will throw more mojo to OS X's direction.

    • Re:It's all about the mojo (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Thantik ( 1207112 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:42AM (#41212999)

      I actually hope this. Not because I wish Apple well being or anything like that, but I realize the hop from OSX -> Linux is a much shorter one than the hop from getting developers targeting OSX from Windows. Valve actually reused a _bunch_ of their Mac code in order to start their Linux port.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      wtf is mojo? osx is horrible mishmash of ui elements tacked on one after another nowadays. launchpad? shit. widget screen? shit(and apple has widgets on it's library which just lockup the whole thing). high dpi support? in osx it's a fucking joke, it's beyond shit(it doesn't exist! it's a myth! that's why the retina macs have to resort to just doubling legacy apps without even asking the user in any way if he wants that)! ui menus detached from apps on a big screen? shit(having no idea which programs menu i

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by cpu6502 ( 1960974 )

        Having Apple rearrange your desktop is a "feature" for those artistic types that barely understand technology. They like that Apple comes along every +0.1 iteration and cleans-up the mess the artist or musician left behind. (Just like they enjoy a maid to come visit their house once in awhile, even if things end-up rearranged.)

      • +1 (Score:3)

        by csumpi ( 2258986 )
        I couldn't agree more. I just installed Mountain Lion, which is a freaking insult to users. From the never stopping notifications, to the useless animations (some of it can't even be turned off, like switching workspaces, which gives me motion sickness), to useless mission control, to the one menu bar for all apps, to natural mouse scrolling, the list is endless.

        Not only that, but now by default (I know it can be changed), it doesn't allow programs (called apps now) to be installed unless it comes from th

      • Re:It's all about the mojo (Score:5, Interesting)

        by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @05:08PM (#41216265) Homepage Journal

        launchpad? shit.

        I tried pulling it off the Dock on my work Mac. It added it back for me. (I have a work project that involves writing an iPad app (for no reason, mind you, other than it's a buzzword), which means I have a Mac as my work machine. In case anyone wonders why I use a Mac.)

        high dpi support? in osx it's a fucking joke, it's beyond shit

        If anyone doesn't believe this, you should read the Mozilla bug on getting high DPI support on Mac OS X in Firefox. Basically, it's never going to happen because the API for doing it is so fucked up. ("But isn't it just rendering things at twice resolution?" Read the bug. It isn't. There are so many edge cases it isn't funny.)

        ui menus detached from apps on a big screen?

        I am convinced no one at Apple has ever tried running a Mac OS X on multiple monitors. It is beyond shit at that. It basically runs on the iPad model of "one app at a time." What, you want your test app in one monitor while the debugger is in the other? Fuck you! You get one menu bar, telling which app is focused is impossible, and whichever app isn't on the "dominant" screen has the menu bar on the wrong monitor.

        what's more, it's not intuitive at all! there's dozens of things in osx you just have to know, half the users don't even know wtf launchpad is.

        Remember how everyone hates that Gnome 3 app launcher thing? The thing that Ubuntu started forcing on everyone? Remember how everyone hates the Metro UI, to the point Microsoft has dropped the "metro" brand? That's the fucking Launchpad. Apparently it's been decided from on high that people like losing their entire screen to a display of giant icons they can slowly scroll through to find whatever they actually wanted. Bleh.

  • XP will continue to drop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sandytaru ( 1158959 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:41AM (#41212987) Journal
    My office is no longer putting XP systems out there - any system running XP that is brought into the shop is now automatically replaced as a matter of policy (for our business clients.) Sometimes we have to twist their arms, but frankly, we've got a deadline in 2014 and we're going to make our clients meet it whether they want to or not. XP market share is likely to plummet rapidly in the next 2-3 years.

    • True enough. My employer is trying to switch to Windows 7 again. The first attempt failed when some app in bean-counter land failed to function. So after a three month delay, they are trying again.

      The prepare for migration instructions this time are much more alarming. Instead of instead of "expect a few hours of minor disruption," It's "Make multiple full back ups of all important data, and we will be wiping your photos and music directories, and if you have applications we did not install through the soft

      • A definite change in tone :-)

        Sounds like a good change in tone. Backup, cleanup, get real about doing business at work.

        Love it!

  • Methodology? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Danious ( 202113 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:41AM (#41212993) Homepage

    Some of the history there looks a bit sus. And how much can you trust figures that give iOS 66% of the mobile OS market and Android only 21%?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Missing.Matter ( 1845576 )
      iOS includes iPads and iPods, which vastly outsell Android equivalents.
      • Android ships on over a million devices a day and that doesn't even include the large numbers of non-Google sanctioned gear. Is Apple really moving that many iDevice?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kjella ( 173770 )

          Android ships on over a million devices a day and that doesn't even include the large numbers of non-Google sanctioned gear. Is Apple really moving that many iDevice?

          A quick look at my price check shows you get an Android phone with crappy screen and practically useless for surfing from 800 NOK, the iPhone 4 is 4000 NOK. So Android might be selling many phones, but they probably also sell to many more people that never or only occasionally use it to browse the web, while if you're spending 5x that you probably do that for a reason (or you're just an Apple fanboi) and is going to use it actively. So I have no real problem believing these figures.

        • It has nothing to do with device sales - it's about usage. It's widely accepted that iOS users surf the web more than Android users. While high end Android devices my get to comparable numbers, you must remember that there is a HUGE range of Android devices from extremely high end devices on the bleeding edge of technology to cheap pieces of crap that nobody in their right mind would want to use to access the internet. iOS devices, on the other hand, are all in the upper range of technology and all are idea

  • Games require windows 7? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vlm ( 69642 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:44AM (#41213019)

    Are there games requiring windows 7 yet?

    I upgraded from 98 to 2000 because second life required 2000
    I upgraded from 2000 to XP but I don't remember which game wouldn't work on 2000 but did on XP
    I'll upgrade from XP to ... 7? when I find a game I want requiring windows 7.... I have not run into one yet, but I'm sure it'll happen someday?

    I only upgraded to the most recent service pack of XP when I recently got the couple years old GTA IV.

    For all other activities I use my linux and mac machines, the windows PC is just for gaming.

    • I'm not sure if there are any games that absolutely require it but there is the DirectX 10 and above issue that doesn't run on XP. Also my friends that run multiple instances of MMORPGs at a time say that the scheduling improvements in 7 make things a lot smoother for the purpose.

    • Are there games requiring windows 7 yet?

      There are a few [wikipedia.org] that require vista and up for DirectX support.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vlm ( 69642 )

        Must have extensive fallback support. On that list I've got bioshock, civ 5, ddo, sto, all of them work fine on XP. If the graphics would be visibly better, I'll have to look into what W7 requires.

    • As far as I know, all games requiring DirectX11 are Vista+ only. Though, most are providing a fallback to DirectX 9.
    • Nah not really. For what it's worth 7 isn't shit. Took 30 years to get here but it works just fine like XP sp3 did. More RAM wit the 64bit OS may make you want to move as games really start to fill out. TRIM support of SSD. but you can get by with an old box and XP for a while more - not much to play with all the DRM making it unwarrantable to go near.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nemyst ( 1383049 )

      Just wait until the 360 is retired, you'll see a major shift to DX11, which cannot run on XP.

      Or you could also upgrade to 7 because it's plain and simply a better, more modern OS?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vlm ( 69642 )

        Or you could also upgrade to 7 because it's plain and simply a better, more modern OS?

        LOL for me its a video game bootloader not a OS. "better" is defined as boots faster or somehow magically makes the game better, apparently I better start looking into what I'll need for DX11 etc.

    • Re:Games require windows 7? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @11:25AM (#41213349)

      Let's see... Battlefield 3 is Vista/7 only, the next Call of Duty is Vista/7 only, probably more than that on the way.

      Main reason is that Microsoft isn't porting Direct3D 10 or 11 back to XP - you can only go up to D3D 9. As more games are tending to use D3D10/11, the burden of adding a D3D9 renderer just for XP support increases.

      And while XP and 7 may have just reached equality among the general population, gamers have upgraded far quicker. Looking at the Steam Hardware Survey, about 70% run some version of Windows 7, 13% run XP, 10% run Vista, 5% run OS X, and the rest are either already on W8 (0.25%) or "Unknown". Main reason, I think, is the prevalence of systems with >4GB of memory. 64-bit XP may have existed, but it was very rare, and had poor driver support. Vista was the first to ship with real 64-bit support, and 7 tried to make 64-bit the "default", moving 32-bit to "legacy". So all those gamers with 8-32GB of memory are running either Vista or 7.

      Consoles tie into this, but in a somewhat weird way. See, the Xbox 360 is sort of halfway between D3D9 and D3D10. So as long as the game has a port to that console (or *is* a port from that console), making it run in D3D9 isn't exceptionally difficult. But as soon as the next-gen consoles hit, D3D9 (and thus, XP gaming) are toast.

    • There have been minor ones that require Vista or 7. Rather laughably, I seem to remember that the PC version of Halo 2 (which is ancient) "required" Vista in an early (and unsuccessful) attempt to get people to upgrade.

      It's only started to get more serious for XP gamers over the last year or so. The news that the next Call of Duty will require Vista or 7 on PC may be the last straw for some.

    • Battlefield 3 would be a major one. It requires Vista or 7 as it is DirectX 10 and above only, it has no DX9 support.

      This is likely to accelerate as time goes on. There are serious design advantages to the DX10+ rendering model, and it is a pain to both implement it and then an old DX9 model. As more people have Windows 7 or newer systems, it is more profitable to have games require it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Are there games requiring windows 7 yet?

      Yes. Are there many? No. But if you look at STEAM's HW survey [steampowered.com] for PC's you'll see that about 57% of the market is Windows7 these days. Now there's at peak about 4-5m users on, there's 30-35m accounts. Probably be a lot more since they're getting into selling retail applications through steam too. Which should give an even broader picture.

      The only thing holding back DX11 in gaming is...can you guess it? Consoles.

  • trolling (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:44AM (#41213021) Homepage

    I have some questions about both the data and the summary.

    In the July to August time frame the data has 1% of the users moving to "other". I'm assuming that 1% is some mixture of Windows 8 and OSX 10.8 betas because I can't think of any other big events that happened between July and August. Which means the math is likely off in the summary.

    As an aside in the source data I have problems OSX being well above 8% (now at 12%) of sales and the figure for market share being around 6-7%. I'd love to see some breakdown that explicates the discrepancy between sales figures and usage figures when they show up, because they are rather common.

    • A lot of people where I work run mac laptops because it is one of three or so options on the IT buy list. Almost all of them run Win7 on them. That type of thing may explain some of it.

    • As an aside in the source data I have problems OSX being well above 8% (now at 12%) of sales and the figure for market share being around 6-7%. I'd love to see some breakdown that explicates the discrepancy between sales figures and usage figures when they show up, because they are rather common.

      I imagine (and it's just a guess) that it has to do with people still using very old PCs. While sales percentages have shifted, legacy equipment still in use results in a discrepancy in usage percentages.

      Just a guess though. It could also be the people running these surveys don't know their ass from their elbow.

  • Where does Linux figure in that list? :)

    • Where does Linux figure in that list? :)

      "Other"

    • It's rolled into the "other" column at 3.74%.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      If you expand the survey to include tablets and other mobile devices (what increasing numbers of people are using as their primary computing device), Android looks pretty respectable. Its behind iOS on tablets, but still making a respectable showing. Its ahead of iOS on phones. Windows mobile variants are down in the noise.

    • Who cares? Last I heard it's doing pretty well everywhere other than the desktop. I've got three Linux based consumer devices within arms reach and only one of them counts as a traditional PC.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ZosX ( 517789 )

        likewise. people are really ignoring the fact that android wouldn't haven been possible without linux and it really is the unsung hero.

  • Yeah... (Score:3)

    by Robert Zenz ( 1680268 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @10:48AM (#41213049) Homepage

    Latest market share figures show the difference between perception and reality.

    Yeah, let's just call statistics from netmarketshare "reality".

  • And OS X should be doing what? Competing with XP for market share? To use OS X you must buy and Apple machine! It's obvious it will have small numbers! Right now I'm using XP at work, because the company got this cheap Atom CPUs and have to put something to run it. But at home I got 2 Macbooks with Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion. What does it mean? That on those numbers I'm being counted twice... So what kind of credibility should we give to it?

  • Microsoft is not selling Vista any more. Apple is not selling OS X 10.6.

    I believe what they are referring to with the words "market share" is what normal people call "installed base."

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by smash ( 1351 )
      I think you'll find that some companies are still buying vista. Chevron (for example) rolled out vista and are still using it as their SOE. Any new PC they buy will get an enterprise license of it.

  • Market share is important if you use actual applications - in other words, do real work with your computer. It also matters if you rely on third party hardware. The effort will go in to making sure they work on the dominant platforms, and the smaller ones will be an afterthought. You're more likely to find advice online relating to running the software on the dominant platform and bugs will get fixed for it first.

    That's why I use Windows.

  • Options (Score:4, Insightful)

    by amoeba1911 ( 978485 ) on Monday September 03, 2012 @11:17AM (#41213289) Homepage

    Some businesses will keep using Windows XP because there are always factory floor computers that simply are a pain in the ass to upgrade - for all practical purposes it's impossible to upgrade, and the OS will get updated only when the old hardware gets dumped and they get a new computer... and that might never happen because factory managers are not likely to invest in fixing something that's not broken.

    And there are personal users who use their computer entirely for facebook/email - they really don't care if their OS supports the latest industry standard features or not. Expect those to be still using windows xp, and maybe eventually switch to an internet appliance device (like ipad) and get rid of the computer altogether. For a great majority of people out there, an ipad does everything they expect from a computer: browse facebook, write email, play farmville. Remember it was only 20 years ago that computers still were not a household item, computers were for geeks. The computer became mainstream only because it started appealing to the dumb masses, it's not because all of a sudden there's a surge in computer geek population. It will eventually go back to what it was - computers one day will return to being a geeky thing, and general population will move to using locked-down internet appliances instead of general purpose computing devices.

    As for me, I would rather use a decade old general purpose computer rather than an iPad. I would rather use Linux than OS X. I used computers before they were cool, and I will use computers after they stop being cool. I am the minority, I am a geek. Internet used to be a place where we could find like-minded people, but now it's eternal September [wikipedia.org].

  • Apple likely made more on OS X than Vista (say 10.4->10.6 or so being the era in question) since people that wanted OS X had to buy hardware from Apple too which they make buckets of money on. Different business model entirely is it shocking that a mid to high end hardware manufacturer sells fewer units than the company that gets their software pre-bundled with everything from low end to top end systems?

    Apple has a good model for a hardware company they get profit margin based on exclusivity, MS gets it

  • Looking at a) global numbers and b) combined consumer/corporate is pretty much the worst possible scenario for Apple. If you limit the "market" being examined to "U.S. consumers" then supposedly Apple has around 21-22% share.

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