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Windows 8.1 Passes Windows Vista In Market Share
An anonymous reader writes "With the release of Windows 8.1 to the world in October, January was the third full month of availability for Microsoft's latest operating system version, which was just enough time for it to pass Windows Vista in market share. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing steadily and eating into Windows 8s share, the duo only managed to end 2013 with 10 percent market share, barely impacting Windows 7."
Chances are this will be from the folks who have no migration path from the software they're using, and they're unwilling to drop it because it "does what it needs to do." We're in a rather interesting era for software, for businesses XP does just fine. The software works, and does it well. So unless your machines have internet access, you're probably going to hold off as long as you can.
On the consumer side, we don't have any big software pushing development. For gaming it's the same deal. And now with Microsoft not sure what it's doing with DirectX, other API's are looking more attractive to developers. OGL and Mantle chiefly, so could this be the beginning of the end of MS desktop dominance? Very possibly. If say Mantle catches on, it could be the deathknell for it. Since it works on AMD and Nvidia cards, it works on any OS since it's handled by the drivers.
Om, nomnomnom...
I think Microsoft is using Windows 8 to force the Windows Phone UI down everyone's throat. Eventually, they will give up.
Their stubbornness is going to start affecting their enterprise business, so they need to wise up soon. Fortunately, the new CEO comes from the enterprise side so he will likely understand that they're playing with fire.