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"By many metrics - Windows XP still has 60% percent of the desktop market. This despite Microsoft only selling Win7 license. "

No it doesn't. At least not in the non-Chinese market where most of us live. That number skews the market where still half of them use IE 6 and is heavily pirated with older machines where 90% of copies are illegal.

In the US XP runs in less 1 out of every 4 desktops. Windows 7 is eclipsing XP and Vista with strong corporate sales. Corporate America is the only one buying new XP licenses and almost all of them are either upgrading to Windows 7 or plan to do it in the next 6-12 months if they are not already doing so now.

XP is quickly dying and being replaced regardless of its fans. At the this rate a year from now it will drop below the 10% marketshare line. Then games and other apps wont support XP anymore. XP is very old and thanks to the recession many companies refused to upgrade and instead kept running older systems which are now dying. Economists call this pent up demand. Vista was so bad too and now with Windows 7 corporate users can finally jump ship.

65% WinXP vs. 13% Win7 - admittedly that was June 2010
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-XP-vs-Windows-7-a-Microsoft-Perspective-147906.shtml

Slightly more updated stats:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Puts them head to head with Win7 leading by 2% points.

Still, as noted in my OP (the GP of this post), web stats are skewed due to User Agents modifications in browsers of non-Windows platforms by users.

So then we turn to a number of resources from Wikipedia which still shows Win7 lagging WinXP by 4% in nearly every survey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

which seems to be corroborated by http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=11 showing Win7 at almost 30% and WInXP at almost 50%.

What does this mean? Given time, WIn7 will overtake WinXP but even 2 years after Win7 was released that still hasn't happened - namely due to (i) the downgrade rights to WinXP that comes with certain versions of Win7, and (ii) the massive amount of installs for WinXP.

And these stats are probably pretty accurate even within the US as well where most only upgrade to a newer version of Windows because that's what came on it from BestBuy/etc; even then, with Win7 if you bought one with downgrade rights you are prompted for which - Win7 or WinXP - you want to install/use during first use.

"By many metrics - Windows XP still has 60% percent of the desktop market. This despite Microsoft only selling Win7 license. "

No it doesn't. At least not in the non-Chinese market where most of us live. That number skews the market where still half of them use IE 6 and is heavily pirated with older machines where 90% of copies are illegal.

In the US XP runs in less 1 out of every 4 desktops. Windows 7 is eclipsing XP and Vista with strong corporate sales. Corporate America is the only one buying new XP licenses and almost all of them are either upgrading to Windows 7 or plan to do it in the next 6-12 months if they are not already doing so now.

XP is quickly dying and being replaced regardless of its fans. At the this rate a year from now it will drop below the 10% marketshare line. Then games and other apps wont support XP anymore. XP is very old and thanks to the recession many companies refused to upgrade and instead kept running older systems which are now dying. Economists call this pent up demand. Vista was so bad too and now with Windows 7 corporate users can finally jump ship.

65% WinXP vs. 13% Win7 - admittedly that was June 2010
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-XP-vs-Windows-7-a-Microsoft-Perspective-147906.shtml

Slightly more updated stats:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Puts them head to head with Win7 leading by 2% points.

Still, as noted in my OP (the GP of this post), web stats are skewed due to User Agents modifications in browsers of non-Windows platforms by users.

So then we turn to a number of resources from Wikipedia which still shows Win7 lagging WinXP by 4% in nearly every survey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

which seems to be corroborated by http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=11 showing Win7 at almost 30% and WInXP at almost 50%.

What does this mean? Given time, WIn7 will overtake WinXP but even 2 years after Win7 was released that still hasn't happened - namely due to (i) the downgrade rights to WinXP that comes with certain versions of Win7, and (ii) the massive amount of installs for WinXP.

And these stats are probably pretty accurate even within the US as well where most only upgrade to a newer version of Windows because that's what came on it from BestBuy/etc; even then, with Win7 if you bought one with downgrade rights you are prompted for which - Win7 or WinXP - you want to install/use during first use.

"By many metrics - Windows XP still has 60% percent of the desktop market. This despite Microsoft only selling Win7 license. "

No it doesn't. At least not in the non-Chinese market where most of us live. That number skews the market where still half of them use IE 6 and is heavily pirated with older machines where 90% of copies are illegal.

In the US XP runs in less 1 out of every 4 desktops. Windows 7 is eclipsing XP and Vista with strong corporate sales. Corporate America is the only one buying new XP licenses and almost all of them are either upgrading to Windows 7 or plan to do it in the next 6-12 months if they are not already doing so now.

XP is quickly dying and being replaced regardless of its fans. At the this rate a year from now it will drop below the 10% marketshare line. Then games and other apps wont support XP anymore. XP is very old and thanks to the recession many companies refused to upgrade and instead kept running older systems which are now dying. Economists call this pent up demand. Vista was so bad too and now with Windows 7 corporate users can finally jump ship.

"By many metrics - Windows XP still has 60% percent of the desktop market. This despite Microsoft only selling Win7 license. "

No it doesn't. At least not in the non-Chinese market where most of us live. That number skews the market where still half of them use IE 6 and is heavily pirated with older machines where 90% of copies are illegal.

In the US XP runs in less 1 out of every 4 desktops. Windows 7 is eclipsing XP and Vista with strong corporate sales. Corporate America is the only one buying new XP licenses and almost all of them are either upgrading to Windows 7 or plan to do it in the next 6-12 months if they are not already doing so now.

XP is quickly dying and being replaced regardless of its fans. At the this rate a year from now it will drop below the 10% marketshare line. Then games and other apps wont support XP anymore. XP is very old and thanks to the recession many companies refused to upgrade and instead kept running older systems which are now dying. Economists call this pent up demand. Vista was so bad too and now with Windows 7 corporate users can finally jump ship.

And iOS is still ahead of Android in marketshare when you include all iOS devices - yet another vector you refuse to consider but is indicative of anything but Apple being stagnant.

Sorry, the facts say you're wrong. StatCounter includes ALL mobile devices, including tablets and iTouch devices - anything that is mobile. Android has passed iOS in marketshare and is second only to Symbian - which hasn't lost any marketshare.

From StatCounter's FAQ about marketshare methodology: "StatCounter is a web analytics service. As of 1 June 2010, our tracking code is installed on more than 3 million sites globally. (These sites cover various activities and geographic locations.)"

So this means that StatCounter only counts web accesses from mobile devices that hit statcounter enabled web sites.

This is not necessarily representative of ACTUAL marketshare. For example, nowhere on that FAQ does it state how they calculate "unique" visitors or devices (this is critically important in web statistics).

Furthermore, there IS a real way to measure market-share... reported unit sales (not shipped, sold to actual customers). Apple has this information, Google and other Android vendors do not (whether they choose to not publish this data or find it hard to come by is unclear).

EVERY analyst in this field has said that Android will emerge on top, marketshare wise, and that Windows Phone will probably end up in second place, with iOS battling for 3rd with Blackberry. That doesn't sound like Windows Phone 7 (get the name right) will eat up Android so much as it will eat up iOS.

Most analysts in 2007 thought the iPhone would barely be able to compete against the Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile. Most analysts in 2010 thought that the iPad was not feature-filled enough and it would fizzle. The fact that these same folks think that iOS will fall to 3rd place behind WP7/8 is laughable. Analysts say what you pay them to say. Microsoft and Gartner, for example, have a very long customer relationship.

And iOS is still ahead of Android in marketshare when you include all iOS devices - yet another vector you refuse to consider but is indicative of anything but Apple being stagnant.

Sorry, the facts say you're wrong. StatCounter includes ALL mobile devices, including tablets and iTouch devices - anything that is mobile. Android has passed iOS in marketshare and is second only to Symbian - which hasn't lost any marketshare.

From StatCounter's FAQ about marketshare methodology: "StatCounter is a web analytics service. As of 1 June 2010, our tracking code is installed on more than 3 million sites globally. (These sites cover various activities and geographic locations.)"

So this means that StatCounter only counts web accesses from mobile devices that hit statcounter enabled web sites.

This is not necessarily representative of ACTUAL marketshare. For example, nowhere on that FAQ does it state how they calculate "unique" visitors or devices (this is critically important in web statistics).

Furthermore, there IS a real way to measure market-share... reported unit sales (not shipped, sold to actual customers). Apple has this information, Google and other Android vendors do not (whether they choose to not publish this data or find it hard to come by is unclear).

EVERY analyst in this field has said that Android will emerge on top, marketshare wise, and that Windows Phone will probably end up in second place, with iOS battling for 3rd with Blackberry. That doesn't sound like Windows Phone 7 (get the name right) will eat up Android so much as it will eat up iOS.

Most analysts in 2007 thought the iPhone would barely be able to compete against the Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile. Most analysts in 2010 thought that the iPad was not feature-filled enough and it would fizzle. The fact that these same folks think that iOS will fall to 3rd place behind WP7/8 is laughable. Analysts say what you pay them to say. Microsoft and Gartner, for example, have a very long customer relationship.

And iOS is still ahead of Android in marketshare when you include all iOS devices - yet another vector you refuse to consider but is indicative of anything but Apple being stagnant.

Sorry, the facts say you're wrong. StatCounter includes ALL mobile devices, including tablets and iTouch devices - anything that is mobile. Android has passed iOS in marketshare and is second only to Symbian - which hasn't lost any marketshare.

Overall, Android is gaining at the expense of Apple and RIM - both are losing marketshare, everyone else is pretty flat (or tiny changes) except Android - which is skyrocketing. iOS is now in 3rd place, and could very well fall to 4th - especially if Nokia makes a big push in their historically-dominated markets with Windows Phone.

Apple can compete against one or many companies, but that few other single companies are capable of really competing against Apple

Except Samsung. In fact, Samsung has probably already passed Apple in terms of smartphone sales. They were very close back at the end of June, and at the sales growth rate of Samsung and Apple over the April-June 2011 timeframe, Samsung should pass Apple sometime around the first half of September - now. And HTC wasn't too far behind, with its sales growth rate putting it ahead of Apple sometime next year. No surprise that Apple is predominantly attacking Samsung and HTC - the two who have passed, or are threatening to pass, Apple in terms of number of units sold and marketshare.

All they are asking is Samsung to stop making devices that look EXACTLY like the equivalent Apple devices. And they appear to have enough of a case that a few courts agree, which means your assertion has been tested and failed in a court of law.

That's ONE court, that didn't hear Samsung's argument, and already greatly scaled back the scope of its INITIAL injunction. The other EU court - the Netherlands - pretty much slapped down Apple, hard. Samsung will face no real problem from that and will get to cheerfully continue sales in the rest of the EU - outside of Germany (which will probably end up following the lead of the Netherlands).

The Dutch court decided that Samsung didn't infringe on any "look" and that, in fact, the Apple CD was so vague as to be unenforceable. Additionally, the whole "slide to lock" thing was found to have prior art (thus tossing Apple's patent) - and we already have precedent in courts about the LG Prada being prior art for the physical look that Apple is trying to cement.

Also regarding that physical look, consider the Samsung media viewer from early 2006. Predates the iPhone and the iPad - and looks an awful lot like the iPad copied its styling cues...

The other reality is that very soon Windows Mobile 7 is going to start eating up Android marketshare.

EVERY analyst in this field has said that Android will emerge on top, marketshare wise, and that Windows Phone will probably end up in second place, with iOS battling for 3rd with Blackberry. That doesn't sound like Windows Phone 7 (get the name right) will eat up Android so much as it will eat up iOS.

Actually, it's based on reality. The trends are unmistakable. Over the last year, iOS is down about 25% in terms of marketshare, and Android is up just a little over 200%. And Android now has a larger marketshare than iOS, and is quickly gaining on the leader, Symbian.

Since SSL was banned to foreign countries, Japan, China, and South Korea standardized on ActiveX controls for banking and any e-commerce.

It is no longer banned but if you go to sites that measure browswer marketshare you get a marketshare that heavily favors Microsoft. It is why Apple left the Korean market a decade ago with Macs as they were useless for anything internet related in Asia. IE 6 and XP marketshare are much lower than what you hear on slashdot because China and much of Asia skew the results.

I do admit this was a bad decision on government encryption export controls more than it was on MS being abusive forcing itself on others with OEMs as Netscape/Firefox did not have an answer to ActiveX and encrption other than relying on SSL.

The latest numbers I saw at Gartner had Linux at about a 2% market share. Compare that with OSX's 4%.

Source please.
Hitslink: 0,91% vs 5,61%
Statcounter: 0.77% vs 6.27%

If you saw anything like 2%, it probably includes Android which has somewhat over 1% of the browser market, most of which use the built in browser. At least "What's the best browser for an Android phone?" is a completely different test...

Most gamers have left Windows XP a long time ago. What the statistics do not tell you is that most XP users are in China which has between 1/3 to 1/2 of all computers. In the US barely 1 out of 4 people still use Windows XP. It maybe number 2 but Vista and 7 combined almost equals 2/3s with the mac taking the rest.

I have noticed games like World of Warcraft seem slower with the directX 11 api than the Direct 9 which is odd and it shows my ati 5750 has some crappy drivers. Or Directx 9 is so good and less buggy that game makers target it. Directx 11 theoretically should be faster than DirectX 9.

They're actually not that common in academia, where every lab has its own messy solution to everything. Nascent geeks turn off the auto-updater out of force of habit, and then graduate, leaving their less-literate successors with the version that was around at their time. If you hit up StatCounter Global Stats and browse the bar graphs by continent, you'll find that Africa, Asia, and South America all have substantial usage of Chrome 5.

According to the statement, a whopping 97% of Mozilla's income comes from the search deals. Unfortunately, [the] company did not disclose the percentage of searches it sends to each search provider.

Mozilla's 2009 Financial Statement [Nov 19, 2010]

The Corporation has a contract with a search engine provider which expires November 2011. Aproximately 86% and 91% of royalty revenue for 2009 and 2008, respectively was derived from this contract.

Mozilla Foundation and Susidiaries: Consolidated Financial Statements : Notes: Note 9: Concentration of Risk [August 23, 2010]

When your only source of funding is the "add-supported" browser, the Windows OS is the air you breathe and the water you drink.
You cannot survive without it.

Windows 88%
OSX 6%
iOS 3%
Linux 1%
Android 1%

Operating System Market Share [August 5, 2011] [Rounded] [Global]

Desktop: 95%

Mobile vs Desktop [July 10 to July 11] [Rounded] [Global]

Windows XP 50%
Win 7 28%
Vista 15%
OSX 6%
Linux 1%
Other 1%

Top 5 Operating Systems [July 10 to July 11] [Rounded] [Global]

Windows is a commercial, proprietary and closed source OS. That is in many ways extraordinarly open to the user, the recreational programmer and the professional developer.

I have over 200 programs on this Win 7 system. I am not bound to any single repository or app store. I am not hectored by RMS. Steve Jobs or Bill Gates when I install a program which they would not approve.

Microsoft began with the stand-alone PC for the school, the home and small business. It began with the user. It began with a market.

The producer Samuel Goldwyn is usually credited for the line "If you've got a message, send a telegram."

Good advice for anyone whose Grand Design is about to collide head-on with a world that is skeptical, pragmatic and more than a little weary of those Who Think They Know What Is Best For Me.

According to the statement, a whopping 97% of Mozilla's income comes from the search deals. Unfortunately, [the] company did not disclose the percentage of searches it sends to each search provider.

Mozilla's 2009 Financial Statement [Nov 19, 2010]

The Corporation has a contract with a search engine provider which expires November 2011. Aproximately 86% and 91% of royalty revenue for 2009 and 2008, respectively was derived from this contract.

Mozilla Foundation and Susidiaries: Consolidated Financial Statements : Notes: Note 9: Concentration of Risk [August 23, 2010]

When your only source of funding is the "add-supported" browser, the Windows OS is the air you breathe and the water you drink.
You cannot survive without it.

Windows 88%
OSX 6%
iOS 3%
Linux 1%
Android 1%

Operating System Market Share [August 5, 2011] [Rounded] [Global]

Desktop: 95%

Mobile vs Desktop [July 10 to July 11] [Rounded] [Global]

Windows XP 50%
Win 7 28%
Vista 15%
OSX 6%
Linux 1%
Other 1%

Top 5 Operating Systems [July 10 to July 11] [Rounded] [Global]

Windows is a commercial, proprietary and closed source OS. That is in many ways extraordinarly open to the user, the recreational programmer and the professional developer.

I have over 200 programs on this Win 7 system. I am not bound to any single repository or app store. I am not hectored by RMS. Steve Jobs or Bill Gates when I install a program which they would not approve.

Microsoft began with the stand-alone PC for the school, the home and small business. It began with the user. It began with a market.

The producer Samuel Goldwyn is usually credited for the line "If you've got a message, send a telegram."

Good advice for anyone whose Grand Design is about to collide head-on with a world that is skeptical, pragmatic and more than a little weary of those Who Think They Know What Is Best For Me.

Actually in the US only 26% use WindowsXP according to gStat. China skews the numbers heavily.

I am guessing ... without evidence ... that half of the XP users are corporations where the accountants and analysts scream there is no ROI or increase in sales to upgrade to Windows 7 ignoring the added support costs and the other half are poor or unemployed people who are using old computers.

People are upgrading, but in the great recession if you do not have money you simply can't and it has nothing to do with preference for XP. If it were free to upgrade people would do it. China has nothing to do with preference more than pirated copies of Windows. Nice cheap netbooks and used computers are near the $150 - $250 mark. I do not know anyone outside of slashdot who prefers XP. People at worksites hate it too but use whatever IT blesses.

There are reasons to upgrade and everyone knows XP is very old including grandmas.

Also according to other sites Xp has just 25% marketshare in the US. XP is not as popular as what other slashdotters would have you believe.

Most users of XP are businesses and people in 3rd world countries who cant afford to have a real non pirated OS. China keeps messing with the statistics and gives the false impression IE 6 and XP are HUGE to developers. Regardless, that they do not browse english websites and live in their own world.

XP will stay around for decades in these markets while corporations are begining to move to Windows 7 FAST. In 2 years the US marketshare for XP will be well under 10% as a result.

According to gStat. Most of the XP machines are in China and other other 3rd world countries where the cost of Windows is a good 2 months salary. That doesn't make any sense so people use pirated XP Sp 2 with IE 6.

Most users are upgrading and I bet you the 26% are mostly corporate users and those who are poor or unemployed in this recession and can't afford a new system.

According to gstats Windows 7 has already taken the majority of marketshare in the US.Only 1 out of 4 are still running XP. In comparison, most of China is heavily XP based with IE 6 being their default browser with 85% running pirated versions of XP which of course is totally different than a corporate locked down XP machine running IE 8, fully patched, with anti virus software you see in developed nations.

I would say it is not XP is the problem more than unpatched decade old computers in 3rd world countries running outdated browsers from 10 years ago being infected. Windows XP Sp 3 with IE 8 is not too bad fully patched and it is MUCH MORE secure than Tho0rx XP Black edition Sp 1 with IE 6 with no anti virus.

According to gstats Windows 7 has already taken the majority of marketshare in the US.Only 1 out of 4 are still running XP. In comparison, most of China is heavily XP based with IE 6 being their default browser with 85% running pirated versions of XP which of course is totally different than a corporate locked down XP machine running IE 8, fully patched, with anti virus software you see in developed nations.

I would say it is not XP is the problem more than unpatched decade old computers in 3rd world countries running outdated browsers from 10 years ago being infected. Windows XP Sp 3 with IE 8 is not too bad fully patched and it is MUCH MORE secure than Tho0rx XP Black edition Sp 1 with IE 6 with no anti virus.

According to gstats Windows 7 has already taken the majority of marketshare in the US.Only 1 out of 4 are still running XP. In comparison, most of China is heavily XP based with IE 6 being their default browser with 85% running pirated versions of XP which of course is totally different than a corporate locked down XP machine running IE 8, fully patched, with anti virus software you see in developed nations.

I would say it is not XP is the problem more than unpatched decade old computers in 3rd world countries running outdated browsers from 10 years ago being infected. Windows XP Sp 3 with IE 8 is not too bad fully patched and it is MUCH MORE secure than Tho0rx XP Black edition Sp 1 with IE 6 with no anti virus.

Alright - I thought EVERYONE knew this, already. Go visit stat counter something or other - link: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-RU-monthly-201006-201106

I really don't have time right now to help you further - but play with that statcounter thing, and you'll find that among Cyrillic language speaking people, Opera pretty much rules. I've played with it in the past, but to be perfectly honest, I HATE those damned charts. I'm color blind, and can't read the damned things easily. Looks like Firefox leads in Russia, with Opera second, IE third, Safari fourth? Quite different from the United States, and the rest of the English speaking world, right?

Here's the global usage stats - IE is below 50% now. Last time I looked, they were still over 60%. Sweet, if you ask me. But, even the global stats are very different from the Russian Federation.

Go, play, investigate. Choose some countries in Eastern Europe that use the cyrillic languages, and I'm certain that you'll find that Opera leads the pack. It certainly did several months ago, and I can't imagine that anything has changed.

The xenophobic bit I was referring to, is that you, like most other people - especially Americans - simply can't imagine that other people do things differently. Because IE rules the US, with Firefox running a distant second, and Chrome running a close third, we tend to ASSume that to be the case with all the rest of the world.

Opera is really not a crappy browser. In fact, it's pretty good. It's just not what I want to use. What I really want, is Chromium, with all the add-on capability that Firefox has. In the meantime, I alternate between Chromium and Firefox.

Have fun with statcounter!

If you check sites like this, that monitor web browser usage you will see that Firefox has been on decline for quite some time. I think with the very recent history of Firefox 4, 5, and now this FUD, you will see a great insurgence of IE.

This all started with the bloat of Firefox 3.5 and the introduction of Chrome. When I see the writing on the wall I tend to change and be an early adopter of the next trend so I do not get left behind. I played with IE 9 last March and loved it and started taking Chrome more seriously after everyone started using it. With the latest news I will leave Mozilla behind. The sole reason to support it was because it supported change and open standards and frankly was a much better browser. It was what IE should have been from day 1.

These days it is helping people stick with proprietary standards and is low quality if you ask anyone who does QA testing. Chrome and IE are frankly better. Chrome has great GPO's and MSI's. In addition, you do not have to worry about your users being infected with Flash (#1 cause of infections today) as it updates automatically unless you stop it with the Google admin toolkit. IE 9 is a very good browser too and is standards compliant now and no longer quirky.

Innovation with HTML 5 is going forward without Firefox. May it rest in piece as it is turning more into Netscape.

The only purpose it serves is to save the geek the trouble of trying to understand why Linux as a client OS is on life support. StatCounter Global Stats

Hey, don't count Linux out just yet. It's making progress in some parts of the world..

Like Norfolk Island. Next year: Some other isolated bit of humanity. You might think it a hopeless endevour, but when the world goes to hell in a handbasket, who's going to be left holding the keys to mankind's future: Isolated tiny islands in the middle of nowhere.

Face it, you just don't understand the Linux world-domination strategy.

The only purpose it serves is to save the geek the trouble of trying to understand why Linux as a client OS is on life support. StatCounter Global Stats

Hey, don't count Linux out just yet. It's making progress in some parts of the world..

Like Norfolk Island. Next year: Some other isolated bit of humanity. You might think it a hopeless endevour, but when the world goes to hell in a handbasket, who's going to be left holding the keys to mankind's future: Isolated tiny islands in the middle of nowhere.

Face it, you just don't understand the Linux world-domination strategy.

Right advice, wrong OS.

Hell.

This worthless piece of crap still gets a cheap mod-up.

The only purpose it serves is to save the geek the trouble of trying to understand why Linux as a client OS is on life support. StatCounter Global Stats

Preliminary for june 2010-2011 here. Changes from May:

Chrome: +1.08%
IE: -0.25%
Firefox: -0.79%

After six months in the lead in Europe, Firefox is now again behind IE. They're backing on every continent except Africa (+0.2%). I don't think rapid-fire will work any better if you don't have the bullets.

Android recently shipped on its 100 millionth unit. iOS has recently shipped on its 200 millionth unit.

That's irrelevant. The relevant question is how many of the units are in use. Given that iOS is longer on the market than Android, it's not unlikely that there are more abandoned iOS devices than abandoned Android devices.

Having said that, StatCounter still shows more iOS than Android, although far from twice as much.

Why can't they express interest buying a Mac?

You'r beloved operating system is making strong headway at 15% of the market! 10 years ago it has 2% of the market. People are buying and generation Y likes them.

Realize that not everyone is going to switch. Especially corporate users, since MS killed the Xserve and there are no deployment tools for MacOSX. Let them upgrade to Windows 7, as they wont ever go Apple unless Steve Jobs wants to actually try to target this market again.

If people use a modern OS with a good browser for HTML 5, accelerated JavaScript and GPU acceleration we all benefit with applets that can run across our phones and desktops/tablets. We can finally kill Flash which will be a plus too as I view it as the enemy of open standards.

I totally disagree with all the anti-Bill Gates rants here.

Let me see where MS was when Gates left? Oh yeah ...

1. IE owned 90% of the browser market
2. SQL Server was rapidly gaining marketshare over Oracle and DB2
3. WindowsCE aka Windows Mobile owned 90% of the smart phone market
4. Windows owned 95% of the desktop operating system market
5. Customers upgrading Windows/Office every 2-3 years during life cycling desktops.
6. MS was first with the MS tablet

Cons
1. XBOX lost 1 billion a quarter. Thats the only negative cost center under his leadership
Things were very good under Bill Gates

Today under Balmer
1. IE owns less than 50% of the browser market in North America
2. SQL Server is rapidly being replaced by MySQL for many internet/intranet sites
3. Windows Mobile owns only 6% of the market
4. Windows only owns 85% of the US market thanks to Apple. 10 years ago they had something like 3% market share rather than the 12 - 15%!
5. Customers are keeping and still buying WindowsXP and Office 2003 and refusing to upgrade if they life cycle to new desktops or not.
6. Ipads and now Andriod tablets are eating XP tablets for breakfast and took over the whole market
Pro
1.I think XBOX is now breaking even

So, in other words Microsoft is losing their existing monopoly slowly and every new market they are trying to get into is just a money losing division. Notice I did not even mention Linux up there. Apple and google, combined with MS incompentence for their existing monopolies are doing the work for us. The fact is MS already won the war over Apple and the Palm Pilot in the mobile wars. Now they are losing BAD and this is inexcusable if I were a shareholder. You can hate Bill Gates all you want for his business tactics, hence I chose his name back in 1999 as he was perceived as unstoppable then. Something needs to change

Haha

That was an accurate, yet ballsy post to mention in slashdot of all places. I got flamed and modded down when stating the obvious with Linux myself, yet I still like it as a Server OS. Linux usage has gone down according to statcounter from nearly 1% to .7%. A very big drop thanks to Windows 7. I used to use Linux but finally gave up on it for the reasons you described. I am contemplating installing it today in a VM so I can run a LAMP stack with PostgresSQL as well as Joomla. But I am in the small small minority of users.

Windows has it's weaknesses but being a consumer OS for business and home users is certainly not one fo them. Compiling a kernel is rediculous. I did PC support as a contractor on teh side and only mentioned Linux to a tech shop because the user needed a server for 10 users and didn't want to pay for Windows 2003 Server Small Business Edition and only needed a file server, domain controller, and a simple email and internet site. Linux fit the bill and hosted all 4 nicely, but that was supported server hardware and not for John in the Office to play his games or run Office on his Toshiba laptop with strange/cheap hardware. Dells do not even make good drivers for Windows in my experience and I hate them with a passion. However, since Michael Dell returned the quality has improved tremendously.

I read your posts and you know your stuff. I used to charge $75/hr when I lived in Alaska for the rates and it sounds like the $35/hr might be a little low for your expertise. I never heard of that app you mentioned that kills adware infected with Flash. I will give it a try since I use music on youtube and prefer not to live without it.

Like what EXT 2? Like that doesn't break. And frankly why should they? It is a free market, you are free to pay the RAND license or walk away. You see THIS is what I find hilariously about the "community" in that while they talk about unity and other crap they will happily fuck each other for a buck and they'll do so even when it slits their own throat!

Did you know nearly two thirds of Linux servers are running CentOS over RHEL? Did you know CentOS was created by a leech company that sold hardware that required RHEL but didn't want to have to shell a dime to RH? Do you see the community calling them out? Nope instead you see them trumpeting CentOS because they are at heart cheap bastards that don't care they are shitting in their own backyard! Who do you think gives back more code than all the others combined? Who do you think has to hire less coders and give back less code because of leeches like CentOS?

So please, continue shooting yourselves in the face. There is nothing I hate more than hypocrites and the "community" has the hypocrisy so thick you can cut it with a chainsaw. The "community" says open up your code and we'll buy and support you! So AMD does what is asked and everywhere you recommend Nvidia who fucks their customers, drops support for anything more than a generation or two old, and who won't give you access to shit! You say you'll support those that support the community yet on every damned forum you push CentOS like there is no tomorrow! Oh the hypocrisy is so thick and rich!

Hell I could go on all damned day with instance after instance of stupidity, greed, and just outright religious zealotry and egoism fucking the community, all the way up to the top with Linus" Plans? What are those?" Torvalds refusing to allow a stable ABI, which would make it trivial for all the hardware OEMs to support you, because it would keep him from getting a wild hair and going Goatse on the kernel anytime he pleases. Even the argument so frequently posted here against it is religious, with the writer going so far as to accuse those that don't give their code as GPL "leeches" and hoping Torvalds next Goatse kills the drivers, even though that is hurting the very users you want to attract.

So please,keep up the hypocrisy. Keep up with "free as in cheapskate above all!" and saying one thing and doing the opposite, please do. Because companies and orgs are getting tired of "update foo broke my drivers" so much that fully two thirds of new SERVERS sold come with Windows, and by refusing to pay even a single cent for a RAND license for anything nearly every new flash that I come across is formatted in NTFS.

You refuse to play nice with others, you have arrogance that would make Jobs blush and without the numbers to back it up, and you expect the world to give you everything for free. So frankly you really shouldn't be surprised your numbers are currently flatline globally and in Europe which so many touted as the next growth market for Linux. Hell last I checked JavaME was beating you! So please, keep it up. I do so love watching hypocrisy and arrogance get its comeuppance!

Like what EXT 2? Like that doesn't break. And frankly why should they? It is a free market, you are free to pay the RAND license or walk away. You see THIS is what I find hilariously about the "community" in that while they talk about unity and other crap they will happily fuck each other for a buck and they'll do so even when it slits their own throat!

Did you know nearly two thirds of Linux servers are running CentOS over RHEL? Did you know CentOS was created by a leech company that sold hardware that required RHEL but didn't want to have to shell a dime to RH? Do you see the community calling them out? Nope instead you see them trumpeting CentOS because they are at heart cheap bastards that don't care they are shitting in their own backyard! Who do you think gives back more code than all the others combined? Who do you think has to hire less coders and give back less code because of leeches like CentOS?

So please, continue shooting yourselves in the face. There is nothing I hate more than hypocrites and the "community" has the hypocrisy so thick you can cut it with a chainsaw. The "community" says open up your code and we'll buy and support you! So AMD does what is asked and everywhere you recommend Nvidia who fucks their customers, drops support for anything more than a generation or two old, and who won't give you access to shit! You say you'll support those that support the community yet on every damned forum you push CentOS like there is no tomorrow! Oh the hypocrisy is so thick and rich!

Hell I could go on all damned day with instance after instance of stupidity, greed, and just outright religious zealotry and egoism fucking the community, all the way up to the top with Linus" Plans? What are those?" Torvalds refusing to allow a stable ABI, which would make it trivial for all the hardware OEMs to support you, because it would keep him from getting a wild hair and going Goatse on the kernel anytime he pleases. Even the argument so frequently posted here against it is religious, with the writer going so far as to accuse those that don't give their code as GPL "leeches" and hoping Torvalds next Goatse kills the drivers, even though that is hurting the very users you want to attract.

So please,keep up the hypocrisy. Keep up with "free as in cheapskate above all!" and saying one thing and doing the opposite, please do. Because companies and orgs are getting tired of "update foo broke my drivers" so much that fully two thirds of new SERVERS sold come with Windows, and by refusing to pay even a single cent for a RAND license for anything nearly every new flash that I come across is formatted in NTFS.

You refuse to play nice with others, you have arrogance that would make Jobs blush and without the numbers to back it up, and you expect the world to give you everything for free. So frankly you really shouldn't be surprised your numbers are currently flatline globally and in Europe which so many touted as the next growth market for Linux. Hell last I checked JavaME was beating you! So please, keep it up. I do so love watching hypocrisy and arrogance get its comeuppance!

>Surfing the web from a mobile device can be clumsy and expensive.

What is this. People friggin' do this all the time. They've been doing it for years now. What are you even trying to say here?

That the desktop remains supreme when surfing the web. Mobile v. Desktop That Linux on all platforms has a less visible presence on the web than the iOS. That, in the Net Applications stats, the iOS has a greater market share than Linux and Android combined.

This is "usage" as measured by the number of visits to websites across the world using different operating systems. There is no bias here because of what system the machine came with. This is the system as it's running when connecting to the Web.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-quarterly-200803-201102

Linux is below 1% and falling. Linux on the desktop is almost imperceptible.

And still at 0.76% market share. . I was sucked in to the linux trap in 2001, and am glad to have got out of it. Gnome 3 was the final nail in the coffin, and Unity is the kick to the horse corpse.

That is only hearsay about Chrome 8, not to mention by now Chrome 8 is all but is gone from the net. With Chrome's auto-update, it takes about 2 weeks from the release of a new chrome version to the old one being irrelevant. Impressive graph here: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-weekly-201106-201111 . Chrome 10 came out 2 weeks ago, and Chrome 9 went from ~15% market share to ~0.5% market share in two weeks because of auto-updates. There's now more IE 5 out there then Chrome 8.

Chrome 10 works fine on XP and Windows 7. I just tested them both at https://sni.velox.ch/. I don't have a Vista install handy at the moment, but I'm sure it works fine too.

Chrome used to use the native Windows SSL libraries, but switched to NSS (the firefox crypto library) a few versions ago, and is now working just fine.

As for Safari on Windows XP, the market share is so low that it doesn't matter. Safari on Windows is almost non-existent to begin with.

What lunacy...I guess Linux didn't go anywhere either cause it's open source...or Chrome.....or Firefox.....

The Mozilla Foundation lives and dies by the add click.Where would Firefox be without the port to Windows?

Unrestricted net assets - Revenues and other support (2009)

Royalties: $101,537,000
Contributions: $50,000

Note 2 - Summary of significant accounting practices

(e) Receivables

Receivables consist primarilly of amounts due from contracts with multiple search engine and information providers

Mozilla Foundation and Subsidiaries

As a desktop client OS, the traditional community-oriented Linux distribution may not be six feet under. But neither is it in the best of health:

Net Applications (March)

Linux 0.92%
iOS 1.8%
Android 0.5%
Operating System Market Share

Statcounter (March)

Linux 1%
Top 5 Operating Systems

W3Schools (January)

Win 7 31%
Up 31% since January 2009
Linux 5%
Up 3% since March 2003
OS PLatform Statistics

So you pit the two browsers currently losing market share against each other? Granted IE far more than Firefox, but the standard to beat right now is Chrome. Look at the graph. There's only browser going up is Chrome. Maybe IE9 and FF4 can stop their customers bleeding away, but they have a long road to get on the offensive - particularly IE.

According to StatCounter, in Germany IE6 is at 0.88%.
However, despite of this I don't think Microsoft likes it: Here total IE usage is below 25% :-)

According to StatCounter, in Germany IE6 is at 0.88%.
However, despite of this I don't think Microsoft likes it: Here total IE usage is below 25% :-)

Not necessarily. According to their figures, Baidu is pretty insignificant globally - although it's huge in China. Maybe only a relatively small percentage of Chinese people browse the web compared to other countries.

Have a look at:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-ww-monthly-201002-201102
http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-CN-monthly-201002-201102

Dan

Not necessarily. According to their figures, Baidu is pretty insignificant globally - although it's huge in China. Maybe only a relatively small percentage of Chinese people browse the web compared to other countries.

Have a look at:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-ww-monthly-201002-201102
http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-CN-monthly-201002-201102

Dan

Switzerland and Spain are doing great with OSS in government.

I think the key word here is "government."

The geek can be a little too enarmoured of the mandate from on high, the bone tossed to your coalition partners or to some notion of political correctness. When you look at a broader spectrum of users the picture can change dramatically:

Switzerland
Spain

Switzerland and Spain are doing great with OSS in government.

I think the key word here is "government."

The geek can be a little too enarmoured of the mandate from on high, the bone tossed to your coalition partners or to some notion of political correctness. When you look at a broader spectrum of users the picture can change dramatically:

Switzerland
Spain

I find it curious that Linux on the desktop should be so well accepted in some markets (especially Latin America) and resisted so vigorously in others. Anyway, this is sad news, whatever the reasons.

Statcounter publishes free global breakdowns of its webstats - and, to be perfectly honest about it, the numbers for Linux range from dismal to also-ran.

South America
Argentina
Brazil

Europe
Finland
Germany

The most significant thing about both Apple and Microsoft is that both began with the stand-alone PC for the non-technical end user.

The PC that was often sold directly to the end-user.

There is some truth to the notion that the PC worked its way into the enterprise by stealth - from the bottom-up rather than from the top down -

and that the geek, when looked at closely, tends to be a top-down sort of guy.

I find it curious that Linux on the desktop should be so well accepted in some markets (especially Latin America) and resisted so vigorously in others. Anyway, this is sad news, whatever the reasons.

Statcounter publishes free global breakdowns of its webstats - and, to be perfectly honest about it, the numbers for Linux range from dismal to also-ran.

South America
Argentina
Brazil

Europe
Finland
Germany

The most significant thing about both Apple and Microsoft is that both began with the stand-alone PC for the non-technical end user.

The PC that was often sold directly to the end-user.

There is some truth to the notion that the PC worked its way into the enterprise by stealth - from the bottom-up rather than from the top down -

and that the geek, when looked at closely, tends to be a top-down sort of guy.

I find it curious that Linux on the desktop should be so well accepted in some markets (especially Latin America) and resisted so vigorously in others. Anyway, this is sad news, whatever the reasons.

Statcounter publishes free global breakdowns of its webstats - and, to be perfectly honest about it, the numbers for Linux range from dismal to also-ran.

South America
Argentina
Brazil

Europe
Finland
Germany

The most significant thing about both Apple and Microsoft is that both began with the stand-alone PC for the non-technical end user.

The PC that was often sold directly to the end-user.

There is some truth to the notion that the PC worked its way into the enterprise by stealth - from the bottom-up rather than from the top down -

and that the geek, when looked at closely, tends to be a top-down sort of guy.

I find it curious that Linux on the desktop should be so well accepted in some markets (especially Latin America) and resisted so vigorously in others. Anyway, this is sad news, whatever the reasons.

Statcounter publishes free global breakdowns of its webstats - and, to be perfectly honest about it, the numbers for Linux range from dismal to also-ran.

South America
Argentina
Brazil

Europe
Finland
Germany

The most significant thing about both Apple and Microsoft is that both began with the stand-alone PC for the non-technical end user.

The PC that was often sold directly to the end-user.

There is some truth to the notion that the PC worked its way into the enterprise by stealth - from the bottom-up rather than from the top down -

and that the geek, when looked at closely, tends to be a top-down sort of guy.

I find it curious that Linux on the desktop should be so well accepted in some markets (especially Latin America) and resisted so vigorously in others. Anyway, this is sad news, whatever the reasons.

Statcounter publishes free global breakdowns of its webstats - and, to be perfectly honest about it, the numbers for Linux range from dismal to also-ran.

South America
Argentina
Brazil

Europe
Finland
Germany

The most significant thing about both Apple and Microsoft is that both began with the stand-alone PC for the non-technical end user.

The PC that was often sold directly to the end-user.

There is some truth to the notion that the PC worked its way into the enterprise by stealth - from the bottom-up rather than from the top down -

and that the geek, when looked at closely, tends to be a top-down sort of guy.

I find it curious that Linux on the desktop should be so well accepted in some markets (especially Latin America) and resisted so vigorously in others. Anyway, this is sad news, whatever the reasons.

Statcounter publishes free global breakdowns of its webstats - and, to be perfectly honest about it, the numbers for Linux range from dismal to also-ran.

South America
Argentina
Brazil

Europe
Finland
Germany

The most significant thing about both Apple and Microsoft is that both began with the stand-alone PC for the non-technical end user.

The PC that was often sold directly to the end-user.

There is some truth to the notion that the PC worked its way into the enterprise by stealth - from the bottom-up rather than from the top down -

and that the geek, when looked at closely, tends to be a top-down sort of guy.