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Windows Drops Below 90% Market Share
ozmanjusri writes "Online market share of the dominant Windows operating system has taken its biggest monthly fall in years to drop below 90%, according to Net Applications Inc. Computerworld reports that Microsoft's flagship product has been steadily losing ground to Mac OS X and Linux, and is at its lowest ebb in the market since 1995. 'Mac OS X... [ended] the month at 8.9%. November was the third month running that Apple's operating system remained above 8%.' The stats show that while some customers are 'upgrading' from XP to Vista, many are jumping ship to Apple, while Linux is also steadily gaining ground. A Net Applications executive suggests the slide may be caused by many of the same factors that caused the fall in Internet Explorer use. 'The more home users who are online, using Macs and Firefox and Safari, the more those shares go up,' he said. November has more weekend days, as well Thanksgiving in the US, a result that emphasizes the importance of corporate sales to Microsoft."
When people realize there are alternatives, they start to look for MORE of them. Firefox specifically is proving that one doesn't need MS to do normal activity. When no website "breaks" because one is using FF, they subtly say "wow". When they learn of new features (tabs) in IE and realize that those were available in FF long before MS got to them, they go "wow".
This would cause people to look at what they do, not what they use to do it, and see if what they need is available elsewhere.
The next big push should be OpenOffice. My kid comes in and shows me her "Powerpoint" (her words) and I know that I haven't put MS Office on her computer, then I point out that it isn't "PowerPoint" but a presentation. She realizes it isn't Microsoft Office and I now have someone who can tell her friends "I didn't use MS Office" (and she will too!).
When people realize they can surf the net (already there) and make "PowerPoints" and "Word Documents" and "Excel Spreadsheet", it will increase the options for discovering that one CAN get along quite nicely without Microsoft.
I've long said that 2007-8 is going to be the beginning of the end for MS. The writing is on the walls, it is just a matter of time before the whole thing collapses.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Not "Windows" Market Share, but specifically Vista Market share only, after all, it's their shiny new thing being forced down all of out throats.
(Yes, I mean to Exclude counting any WinVista Downgrade licenses in the %, and show the *Actual* market share % use of WinVista in PCs since the WinVista release to date.)
Those stats might be more interesting and possibly more insightful to MS losing market share to other PC OS options.
Grouping *EVERYTHING* marketed as "Windows" into one pool is not statistically transparent.
I argue that many would NOT consider WinME, Win2k, WinXP, WinVista, or even Windows Mobile to be the the same category, etc...
I think it's less a "good news for Apple" story as it is a "bad news for MS" story. Apple gained a slight bit of market share. But MS is in a much more vulnerable position. MS's entire business model is pretty much PREDICATED on the proposition that they pretty much own the OS market (and has been for a long time now). Anything that threatens that share, even just a little, threatens the very underpinnings of the company.
God, it was hard getting through that paragraph with no sarcasm.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Well if Apple continues to gain marketshare, we will soon find out what that threshold is. As soon as Apple gets slapped with an antitrust suit, note the current market share. That shall be hence forth the monopoly threshold. Apple is just as bad as Microsoft when it comes to consumer lock-in. You don't have to look any further than iTunes to see it, but there's plenty more examples. They just never get in trouble for it because they are perceived to be such a small player in the market (even though the iPod is clearly the dominant mp3 player).
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
The story is about online market share, not market share period - they came up with these results by tracking certain websites to see the proportions of the operating systems of their visitors. As the article explains, they think Windows share dropped because there is a higher concentration of Windows PCs at work than at home, and over Thanksgiving, many people weren't at work. Notably, this study doesn't say anything about the total market share of Windows or any other operating system, as seems to be implied in the headline and most of the summary.
Just curious, but at what point is Microsoft no longer considered a monopoloy? At what percentage are they legally allowed to start pulling the dirty tricks again?
when they no longer conspire to dominate the market through misconduct.
I think it's less a "good news for Apple" story as it is a "bad news for MS" story. Apple gained a slight bit of market share. But MS is in a much more vulnerable position. MS's entire business model is pretty much PREDICATED on the proposition that they pretty much own the OS market (and has been for a long time now). Anything that threatens that share, even just a little, threatens the very underpinnings of the company.
God, it was hard getting through that paragraph with no sarcasm.
Okay, let's get a little perspective here. It's a common meme in the business that Microsoft makes more money selling software to Mac users than Apple makes selling Macs to Mac users. I'm not positive whether that's still true, but it would not surprise me in the least if it was. MS-Office for Mac still costs a king's ransom and still sells like hotcakes at Apple Stores everywhere.
Microsoft makes pretty good bank on Windows, but it's far from being their main revenue stream. Productivity software, enterprise solutions, and services are where their big bucks come from.
What I find amusing about the story is this: Apple raises their market share from what was possibly as low as 3 percent a couple years ago to about 9 percent, while Linux remains something that non-nerds are not even sure how to pronounce, and what's the spin on Slashdot? "OS X and Linux are chipping away at Microsoft's market share!"
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Meh. Regardless of its popularity, OS X is still going to be the nicer platform to work with.
Mainstream acceptance does not always invalidate "hip" status. Obama won the election comfortably, but he's still considered the more "cool" candidate to have supported by most trendy urbanites.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Just plain wrong.
A fact is a fact, regardless of whether or not it is true. The opposite of fact is opinion, not falsehood.
OS X is chipping away at the desktop market.
Linux is chipping away at the enterprise server market.
So yes, OS X and Linux are chipping away at Microsoft's market share of 2 or more markets...
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
"Windows' share typically falls on weekends and after work hours, as users surf from home computers, a larger percentage of which run Mac OS X than do work machines."
So, what they are saying is that people would rather use something else, and do so at home. In effect, people don't want windoze but are forced to use it at work.
Windows sucks and there's your proof.
It's a matter of margins.
Each Mac mini needs to be built in a Chinese sweatshop and then shipped to the US.
Each MacBook needs to be built in a Taiwanese sweatshop and then shipped to the US.
Each version of MS-Office needs to be written once and then sold on $0.50 disks to millions of users for hundreds of dollars each. Plus, if the user is "keeping up" with your versions, you'll ding them about 3 times over the useful life of the Mac they're running it on.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
This is an article about the desktop market, not the enterprise market. Linux remains a non-factor on the desktop.
As for the enterprise, I admit I haven't been paying very close attention since shifting my career towards more of a programming role, but it seems to me that there were a lot more enterprises running some flavor of Unix or another (including Linux) ten years ago, and a lot fewer Windows Enterprise shops back then. A decade ago, Windows was not taken very seriously as a "big iron" server solution. Now they seem to have bleed into many (if not most) corporate server farms, though still not the overwhelming dominance they have in the desktop market. Am I just horribly misguided on that score?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
No one is buying a GNU/Linux netbook and then torturing themselves with a $200 XP install.
No, but a lot of people buy the cheaper linux netbook, and then install a pirated xp on it.
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Why do people keep going on about the 'iTunes lock-in'? It is equivalent to Zune Marketplace, and any other mp3 player + music manager combo (there have been many over the years). I had a Rio MP3 player before an iPod, it had a music manager that only worked with the Rio, and I had to switch to iTunes when I got my iPod... so what??
As for the DRM, Apple is trying to get rid of DRM in their music. EMI is selling all their stuff through iTunes without DRM, the other music labels are selling DRM-free music through Amazon but won't through iTunes because they don't like the market share iTunes has. When MS brought out the Zune they stiffed all their 'partners' (victims) who had bought into the 'playsforsure' DRM (which the Zune didn't play), is that anything like what Apple has done with iTunes?
What is your logic for going after iTunes as being anything worse then is already out on the market from damn near everyone else? From what I can see, Apple is trying to be better but is shackled by others (music labels), vs MS who seems to like screwing people and companies over.
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AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
That's true with nerds too. Why, just the other day, I was Yahooing a javascript method...
See what you did there? "Why, that fool doesn't use Google!" The mainstream - and yet still the coolest - search engine. Because it works the best.
Popularity does not always have a negative feedback loop.
Apple is trying to get rid of DRM in their music? How did Amazon get all of theirs without it? Are you telling me the CEO from Amazon is a better negotiator or speaker than Steve Jobs? I don't think so. Face it, it's not in Apple's best interested to remove the DRM.
Honestly iTunes is fair game for scrutiny.
I know this is gonna hurt, but I'll bite.
Video editing. DVD authoring. MP3 Encoding. Video Capture. HTPC. Signal Processing.
The list goes on for processor limited tasks that new hardware continues to improve. To say that you only use your PC for gaming shows your age and naivete.
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That is what people are talking about, when they complain about iTunes lock-in. Try using a Rio without their software: easy. Try using an iPod without their software: hard and you get threats and deception from an Apple lawyer.
Because it's not "damn near everyone else," it's damn near no one else. It's unusual for an MP3 player to require a proprietary syncing app and refuse to work if the user chooses some other way to get the music onto the player.
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I suspect that Linux usage is a teeny bit higher than Net apps tracks. This is because Net Apps relies on browser response to track OS users. Many Linux users spoof IE/Windows in their browser to allow certain poorly coded websites to function. While it likely won't account for more than a 0.5% difference, Linux usage IS a bit under reported.
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Isn't that just a bit out of date? Yeah, I know back when IE had 95% market share and there were extremely poor "there are no other browsers" sites out there that some did, but with IE at under 70%, Firefox at 20% and others at 10% are there I don't see how. Is there even a single site that would work on Firefox/Win but not Firefox/Lin? Or are you trying to say websites shut out 30% of the market? Sorry, but these days I'd call that wishful thinking.
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GP's point is still valid though. Microsoft's main profit point is neither Windows nor Office, it's synergy. Especially in the corporate office environment. They sell you the Windows, and the Windows works best with the Windows Server, and then well, you bought the Windows Server and the Exchange is not much more, so you get the Exchange... but the Exchange works Best with the Outlook, so you get the Outlook, which is MUCH cheaper as part of the Office, so you get the Office too. Hey! The SQL Server will grab auth info from the Active Directory! If you need a database, you should get the SQL Server, which works better with the IIS, which really wants the Visual Studios to develop the VB and ....
You get the idea. When you buy Windows you are often on the slippery slop of becoming a "Microsoft Shop" often one product at a time. But if you never buy Windows, why buy all that other stuff? If you replace Windows, most of that stuff becomes either unnecessary or counter productive. So if some little 100 man company replaces all of their Windows PCs with Macs, Microsoft hasn't just lost 100 Windows sales, chances are they've lost server sales, IIS sales, Exchange sales... On and on. Even if the company does get MS office, it's still a pretty big hit on what they COULD have bought. Now multiply that by 10 or 100 or 1000.
Microsoft is still in no danger of going out of business, but loss of desktop sales hurts them far beyond just the individual license sale lost. The main hole in GPs argument it that most of the lost Windows sales are for home use. The synergy is less important there. I wasn't buying a full fledged tech infrastructure for my house anyway, so MS hasn't lost many potential synergy sales because I bought a Mac or switched to Linux. Still some businesses are switching, so the tide MAY be turning, but it's going to be a long while before you see Apple or Linux get the kind of penetration on business workstations that they're starting to get in the home. (At least partially because a lot of businesses have already invested a fortune in those infrastructure synergies, and don't want to lose them)
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
If you mean that OSX is a descendant of FreeBSD then you are mistaken. OSX is a descendant of Mach, which shares a distant common ancestor with FreeBSD.
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How exactly do you get +4 interesting for something that is so obviously false? Apple contracts out their computer manufacture to 3rd parties - the same 3rd parties that Dell and HP use. Licensing OSX to Dell and HP would just add a middleman, it would not add any manufacturing capacity. And Apple can scale mac production as high as they like, they just have to make a phone call to Taiwan and there you go, more production.
If Apple doesn't go above 10% in market share (though I doubt that statement), it's because it doesn't need to.
The reason Apple sells is because they represent the high end and the stylish. Arguing Apple is stupid because it cannot grab 10% market share in the computer market makes just as much sense as arguing Rolex is stupid because it cannot grab 10% market share in the watches market, or Porsche is stupid because it cannot grab 10% market share in the cars market. Problem is - do these companies need to?
As Apple's venture with iPod and iPhone has shown, Apple can increase their profits by taking their brand and design and expanding into other markets, rather than go destroy their brand and combat the lower end PC markets. I'm not saying Apple is superior to HP, Dell, etc. But Apple's direction is fundamentally different from HP and Dell, it just doesn't make sense to judge Apple's success with HP/Dell's metric. It's like judging a fashion company from the viewpoint of a drugs company - it doesn't make sense.
Why is Apple offering EMI tracks without DRM? Are you telling me the customers of EMI music are more shrewd purchasers than customers of other labels' music? Face it, you haven't really studied the topic very well.
The labels intentionally gave Amazon the right to offer DRM free tracks to lessen Apple's negotiating power over them. Hasn't worked very well, ITMS is still the top seller of music.
The problem is that open source won't/can't accomplish some of the things you ask for.
Some are easy: unified sound architecture. Ok, that's pretty much done (see: ALSA).
Better graphics drivers: Well some of these are binary only, but both Nvidia and ATi have pretty decent drivers for Linux these days.
Filesystem that has a coherent layout? I personally think that the filesystem already makes plenty of sense, and since the OS that IS gaining ground on Windows (Mac OS X) uses the same Unix style layout, then I don't think it's a major factor.
Something other than X11? This could indeed work if done right. Notice how quickly people dumped XFree86 for the xorg fork for example. However, shifting from X11 would require a major, major push. Tons of applications that are no longer actively maintained (or at least not heavily maintained) simply aren't going to take the time to recode. Any replacement would HAVE to include a rootless X11 server as a seperate component. No problem there (Mac OS X has one and there are plenty available for Windows too), but if 99% of your applications just default to using the X11 server built into your new interface rather than the more raw mode, then you haven't accomplished much. Also, those drivers that Nvidia has put out are currently for xorg. It'll take another display method gaining SIGNIFICANT ground before they recode those things. In the transition phase people would have to live with subpar drivers.
So, there's the (somewhat) accomplishable goals. Then we get to:
One unified kick-ass desktop: not going to happen. At all. Linux is based on the concept that the userbase can write software as they see fit for their own use. There is no governing corporate board to choose one solution over another: by nature it's community driven. As such if somebody doesn't like a desktop, they'll write another. Prevent that ability and you destroy most of what's keeping the current Linux users loyal to the platform: freedom to modify, fork, etc.
Consistent look to applications: People tend to code to toolkits that they know. We have several established toolkits out there now: GTK and QT are the biggies. WxWindows, Tcl/tk, and others are minor but still significant. You're not going to get people to give up the ones that they like by choice, and to force them to would again kill freedom. About the best you could hope for here is a common skinning/theme engine that you could use to make both toolkits look similar, but I doubt they'd ever look completely consistent.
Klller apps that don't exist anywhere else? Most certainly not going to happen. Again, 99% of software for Linux is open source. If people like any of those programs they are going to port them to other platforms. That's a given. The only way to prevent that is to close the source and take it proprietary, but then you tick off your user base again. The small minority of commercial software for Linux certainly isn't going to code exclusively for it either. Why would someone code for a platform that is only 1% of the total market? It's financial suicide. The only business that would typically do that would be one trying to push the platform from some idealistic standpoint, but businesses that put ideals like that in front of profits don't tend to remain in business very long.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain