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."

Comments

misleading

[brunascle]

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.

Re:Misleading sensationalism, as usual

[FatMacDaddy]

The article explains that:

"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.

And Windows users buy PCs more often

[blueZ3]

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.

Vista Numbers Suggest Poor Adoption

[G4from128k]

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).

Re:Vista Numbers Suggest Poor Adoption

[clodney]

I think it is too early to condemn the Vista adoption rate, for the simple fact that very few businesses are going to jump on a new release as soon as it comes out. Vista has only been in full release for 6 months at this point, and the places with the really big user bases are going to be very cautious in their rollout plans. At this point I wouldn't expect the GMs and GEs of the world to either roll it out company wide or even allow it to remain on new units that they bring in the door.

Give it another year and then I think you can legitimately say that Vista adoption is seriously lagging the growth of the market.

There is a story here and the Register got it.

[twitter]

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.

Re:Misleading sensationalism, as usual

[smitty97]

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>

Nothing to see here....

[jmorris42]

> 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.