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Windows 7 Share Grows At XP's Expense
CWmike writes "Microsoft's Windows ran to stay in place last month as Window 7's market share gains made up for the largest-ever declines in Windows XP and Vista, data released today by Web metrics firm Net Applications showed. By these numbers, Windows 7's gains were primarily at the expense of Windows XP. For each copy of Vista replaced by Windows 7 during November, more than six copies of XP were swapped out. Meanwhile, Apple's Mac OS X lost share during November... betcha Ballmer is having an extra giddy time with that news. Linux came up a winner last month, returning to the 1% share mark for the first time since July. Linux's all-time high in Net Applications' rankings was May 2009, when it nearly reached 1.2%."
Yes, 7 is ***cheap*** for education.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
I mean, the headline makes it sound like Microsoft isn't do so well, but the full summary suggests that Apple is the one lowering its Market share to Linux.
I mean, Considering PC's have the most market share, anyone who doesn't use Windows is essentially using whatever their alternative is (OSX/Linux) to get AWAY from Windows (Especially Vista, that pushed a few people I know towards a Macbook).
So, was Windows 7 expected to Rip all thsoe Happy Mac customers back to Windows? Or was it majestically expected to make Linux users go insane?
Windows Users use Windows, and Windows 7 will only grow from the market share of other Windows operating systems. It'll be a long while before Mac and Linux users go back to Windows, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse will be just as stumped as I will be.
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Second point: I had my first hands-on with Windows 7 today. I'm somewhat bewildered. In what way is this not Vista 1.1? Sure, okay, there are some cosmetic changes to the taskbar but really, I fail to find anything revolutionary. Certainly nothing that justifies the same folks who've said all along that Vista was "bad" to say that 7 is "awesome". Is a slight reduction in UAC prompts really enough?
I think that MS did that intentionally. Vista was such a pain because it was such a sharp break from XP. Porting any reasonably complex application from XP to Vista is a difficult task; especially if that application has existed since the 9x days. I think MS is trying to do smaller more incremental releases now.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
PC gamers are abandoning XP and Vista and moving towards Windows 7. For the first time ever since Valve began publishing their hardware survey back in 2003, Windows XP usage among Steam users has finally dipped below the 50% mark, and is losing ground relatively fast. Steam Hardware Survey
I have not. Sure, in server rooms I've seen some Gnome desktops lit, mostly so the sysadmins could surf. But in the wild? Not once, in 10 years of looking. The closest I saw was a BSD laptop brought in by a job applicant for an IT position.
My brother and I both use Linux desktops, he more faithfully than me -- I have a multiple boot between Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), but I tend to boot into Windows and putty ssh to administer Linux server boxen and use a vmware guest of centos for my php scripting work. He's very hard core -- all Linux, mostly Fedora, no multiple boot and no vmware. He's seen some Linux desktops, but only at meetup.com meetings and local LUG meetings.
I'm in Canada, in case that is significant, and I gather there is more Linux in Europe than here (Linux Format is expensive but awesome). But 2%? Or even 1%? I don't think so. I walk by a university's glass wall a few times I week, but the only thing I've noticed there is that 50% of the students use mac books.
So I ask you: have you ever seen a Linux desktop in the wild? LUG meetings do not count. Here's my definition of what counts: coffee shops, restaurants, airports, trains, lobbies, office cubicles, etc.
Steveo gave a presentation to investors in Feb.2009 and the graph he was using shows the desktops and 1 was Windows, 2 was Windows pirated and the graph looks like Linux is slightly ahead of Mac.
Was Ballmer lying to investors?
I dont know but seems to me that "Ballmer says Linux desktops are higher than Mac." should have been better covered.
As for the 1% meme that became popular this year, go back 3-5 years and you will see the numbers spouted back then were 2-6%.
I assume you are only counting desktops. In my house I have 2 - Windows 7 Desktops 1 - XP nettop 1 - XP Media Box (XBMC) 1 - Linux Desktop 5 - Linux Wireless Routers (2 for a wireless to wireless router when I travel) 2 - Linux TVs 2 - Linux NAS 1 - Linux VOIP adapter 1 - Linux Phone (Android actually, but that sits on top of Linux) That puts me at 4 Windows and 12 Linux systems in my home, so Linux has a 75% market share here too. I would guess that there are a LOT more people running Linux in their homes than are counted or even realize it.
I think you missed the "(as far as application devs are concerned)".
With the exception of security stuff, it's much easier to program in Vista & Windows 7, especially GUI stuff, in my opinion. APIs are more complete and more regular.
And the only reason security was easier with Windows XP was because you could get away with assuming admin priveleges more often.
Of course they are upgrading, my Vista system just decided it wasn't genuine, last month my boss's XP machine decided it wasn't genuine coincidence? If you can't find that little certificate what choice do you have, you can't even buy XP anymore! At least I was dual-booting with Linux but Mozilla reports it's IE6 on Vista.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
If you count iPhones which is an embedded device, then you should compare it against Linux embedded devices, of which there are more than 300 million made each year. If one counts ALL Linux devices then there are at least 1.5 billion Linux devices in use (300 million times a 5 year lifetime) - possibly more than 2 billion if you add desktops and servers. So Linux is actually by far the most popular OS ever.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
OK - if your a developer - or anybody who is - please tell me something...
I just made a big jump from Win XP Pro and MSVC 6 to Windows 7 64 bit and VS2008, and I am trying to get up to speed. I created a very simple benchmarking console app on the old system and compiled a release build under MSVC 6, and then compiled exactly the same code under VS2008 on the new machine. No matter what optimizations I used, or whether I created a 32 bit release build or a 64 bit release build with VS2008, the exe created under the old MSVC ran about 25% faster on my new platform than the new build on my new platform. Question - what is it with VS2008? This is intolerable!
Try it yourself and get back to me.