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Vista Use Grows as Mac OS X Stays Flat
jdelator writes to mention ComputerWorld is reporting that Microsoft's Windows Vista has increased their market share steadily every month while their main opponent, Mac OS X, has remained essentially flat. "According to Net Applications, in June Windows Vista accounted for 4.52% of all systems that browsed the Web, up from January's 0.18%. Vista has grown its usage share each month since its release to consumers Jan. 30, hitting 0.93% in February, 2.04% in March, 3.02% in April and 3.74% in May. Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, meanwhile, accounted for 6.22% in January and hit its high point of 6.46% in May, but it slipped back to 6% in June. If Vista's uptake trend continues, it should pass Mac OS X in Web usage share by the end of August."
You know, new computers are still sold ...
you cant compare Vista and OS X. you can compare Windows and OS X, or Vista and OS X 10.4 (or whatever the newest one is). the Vista numbers are undoubtably people switching from other Windows versions, not from Mac or Linux, whereas the Mac numbers are people switching to/from Mac in general.
Of course, this doesn't include OS X users forced to set the user agent as Windows/MSIE to use crappy web sites that reject Safari out of hand
If Vista grows and OS X is constant the XP is falling. No big news. I'm not forgetting Linux or BSD,
:)
but I doubt anyone using that would ever go back to windows. I wouldn't.
And it wouldn't really have an impact unfortunately.
I would however change my Tiger for a Leopard when it comes out, and add a notebook to boot. Can someone
give me the sites which are being watched; I'll just add some script visiting every one of those
sites with my Linux and OS X machines. Bye bye windows
I also wonder whether the iPhone counts as OS X, and whether a million devices would make an impact
on the statistics.
"Likewise, Vista's increases have come at the expense of Windows XP and Windows 2000, both of which have dropped in usage since January. Windows XP, for instance, accounted for 85.02% of all machines that month but was down to 81.94% in June. Windows overall total has remained flat, ranging between 90.01% and 90.46% through the first six months of the year."
You DID read the article before posting didn't you? Oh wait, I almost forgot, this is Slashdot.
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I really doubt that there are lots of people buying boxed upgrades to Vista. What seems more likely is that they are negligible compared to the people who don't know enough to request XP when they buy a new system.
Also, among potential Mac switchers, it is probably common knowledge that now is not the time to buy. Let's wait until this time next year, after Leopard has started to settle in and more people have gotten frustrated by Vista. We could see a very different picture.
Windows rules the corporate roost, where the average life of a PC is 2-3 years. You also have lots of folks buying a new Windows box when their old one "becomes slow" because of malware. You probably have an average Windows computer lifespan of around three years. Every time a Windows box heads for the landfill (or is donated to a school, re-tooled with a Linux install, etc.) you potentially have another Windows sale.
Macs, on the other hand, tend to be kept a lot longer. There are a good number of folks with 5-6 year old Macs that are still happily using them. Every one of those six-year-old macs means that Apple has 1/2 the OS sales (per user) as Windows.
That's why I'm baffled by the spurrious price comparisons between Macs and Windows PCs. Sure my PowerBook cost 25% more than your Dell. But in three years, when you send your Dell off to laptop heaven (or more likely, if it's Dell, laptop hell) my PowerBook will still have at least three years of useful life left. Making your 25% "savings" actually a loss.
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Lets think about what the Vista penetration SHOULD BE with a very conservative estimate. Assuming that the average person buys a new PC every 4 years (actual stats suggest the refresh rates are faster than this) and gets Vista with a new PC, Vista penetration should be at about 11% right now (and that assumes that NO ONE upgrades and total PC use is flat). If PC penetration is growing (which it is) or former XP users are upgrading (which I assume some are), then we'd expect even higher than 11% penetration by Vista. That Vista penetration is less that 1/3 these expectations suggests that all is not well with this OS launch. These numbers suggest that very very few people have upgraded from XP and that many people buying new PCs are avoiding Vista (confirmed by MSFT's announcement of higher-than expected XP sales into the coming years).
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
We were just talking about how browser stats are useless. The only hard use number so far comes from disappointing memory sales, and M$'s bottom line which show Vista is not being used much.
The real story is that the upgrade train is out of steam. M$ introduced both a new OS and a new office suit without a real change their bottom line. Their market is stagnant and will only decline as people get sick of XP and see Vista as even worse. The tipping point has arrived.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Why stop at August - in a mere 9 years it will have 110% of the market!
M$ depends on growth to feed it's "restricted" stock compensation plans. Vista adoption is slower than any Windoze version ever. Significantly, it has not made a dent on M$'s bottom line. They have already been losing developers to Google and other competitors based on the failure of their stock options plans - options for $150 when the stock is selling at $25 are kind of insulting.
They are in the non free death spiral. The downward spiral begins with long development time and poor quality, like Vista exhibits. It ends with the realization that M$'s triumph is not self assured. People can and will use other software when the M$ upgrade gravy train is over. Witness the ultimate end, $200 gnu/linux laptops. At that price point there's no room for the M$ tax. The squeeze makes it even more difficult for them to develop product and things just get worse for them.
Their efforts to own free software are a threat, but one that will be vanquished in short order by everyone else who's making good money with honest software. M$ can join the party or die.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This is news? Users on a silo'ed hardware platform, who pretty much have all upgrade to the latest version of OSX and are waiting for the release of Leopard in November aren't running out to buy another copy of Tiger? If I was Microsoft I'd be a bit worried about the numbers considering most current sales of Tiger involve a substantial investment in hardware and an obvious choice in OS philosophy. Where as most sales of Vista involve the loss of an XP user in upgrading and probably not a loss in a Mac user.
Mac fanboy and proud of it (It dual boots Gentoo so phtsssst!)
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
If you add up the 3 windows versions, and the 2 mac versions, you get the opposite trend:
<code>
Month XP+2K+Vista MacOS + Intel
July, 2006 90.39% 4.29%
August, 2006 90.72% 4.33%
September, 2006 90.70% 4.72%
October, 2006 90.50% 5.21%
November, 2006 90.52% 5.39%
December, 2006 90.46% 5.67%
January, 2007 90.13% 6.22%
February, 2007 90.01% 6.38%
March, 2007 90.32% 6.08%
April, 2007 90.09% 6.21%
May, 2007 90.07% 6.46%
June, 2007 90.46% 6.00%
<code>
mod me funny
> It seems they are still buying Windows computers though...
Yup, just like they have for the last twenty years. 95% +/- a point or two of new machines sold have been preloaded with whatever Microsoft wants and that isn't likely to change until the Redmond Empire falls. This slow uptake of Vista looks like it is almost entirely being driven by the hardware replacement cycle. Actually this sounds slower than that cycle, makes me wonder just what percentage of new hardware is still being shipped with XP. That should be the headline but the author/publication is obviously a Microsoft Media Whore and they spun it into something positive.
Seriously, ALMOST beating OS X's 6% market share when you are a predatory monopolist who has been cramming Vista down vendor's throats for six+ months now isn't something to be proud of.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Democrat delenda est
Surprising that Apple only has 6% to 7%? It was only a couple years ago that Apple hat 3%!s html
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/01/15.15.
In three years they have doubled their share. If they can keep this pace they may be able to hit 10% in another three years.
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