Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Windows 8.1 Finally Passes Windows 8 In Market Share

Posted by Unknown on from the slightly-more-than-zero dept.

An anonymous reader writes "May was the seventh full month of availability for Microsoft's latest operating system version: Windows 8.1 continues to grow slowly while Windows 8 remains largely flat, allowing the former to finally pass the latter in market share. At the same time, Windows 7 has managed to climb back over the 50 percent mark, while Windows XP still has more than 25 percent of the pie, despite support for the ancient OS finally ending in April."

15 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. 12.64 percent in only 17 months by symbolset · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is a shame the next update still won't have the promised start menu.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
    1. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by rubycodez · · Score: 4, Insightful

      will take more than a start button to fix windows 8.x

      that's like putting parsley garnish on a dish full of shit

    2. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, from a structural standing, Windows 8 is fine, even better than the ones that came before.

      It's the UI they changed.

    3. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is a shame the next update still won't have the promised start menu.

      Yeah, but funny as hell that, combined, Windows 8.x (all versions) is only ~25% after three years (a complete tech cycle in the consumer realm). It's doubly funny that this is in spite of every bix-box OEM pimping 8.x as hard as they friggin' can (go ahead and try to buy a laptop in BestBuy or Wal-Mart with something other than Windows 8 in it...)

      Now compare that crappy growth curve to XP, 98, 95...

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    4. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For the majority of users the OS is the UI.

    5. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by Jmstuckman · · Score: 4, Informative

      Three years used to be a complete tech cycle in the consumer realm -- back in the 90s and early 2000s -- but the average consumer no longer upgrades their computer nearly that often. Most of my friends are still using 5-7 year old hardware, because the hardware from that era is still perfectly capable of running today's software. Your techie friends may upgrade every three years, but nobody else does.

      The vast majority of consumers only upgrade their OS when they buy a new system. The lack of uptake of Windows 8 is simply because not that many people have replaced their computer in the last few years. Unfortunately, a lot of the hardware from the 2004-2005 era (the first generation of systems to take DDR2 RAM) is still floating around. Because these systems shipped with XP, they are still running XP, and we now have a problem on our hands.

      Compare the Windows 8 growth curve to XP? That 9-year-old hardware from 2005 is still perfectly adequate for most tasks. On the other hand, using a PC from 1992 when XP came out in 2001 would have been impossible (unless you were rich, that computer would have had a 386 CPU and a hard drive with less than 100MB!)

    6. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by Beck_Neard · · Score: 5, Informative

      You mean 40% of servers, 96% of supercomputers, and 80% of smartphones/tablets?

      Linux may have started out as a desktop OS, but now it's very much a server/enterprise/workstation (am I allowed to use that word anymore?) OS. Oh, and also embedded devices and phones (really, everything except the desktop). Turns out, the average person who buys a PC is going to use the OS the computer ships with and will never upgrade.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    7. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And who, exactly, wants a touchscreen on a laptop? Touchscreens are a crappy interface for devices too crappy to include a keyboard and mouse.

    8. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't mean to make a pun here when I say you're out of touch.

      People have nearly always put their damned fingers on the screen when they wanted things to happen. Children were doing that before touchscreens got big.

      The big problem is this slashdot idea that if you have a touchscreen then you can't have a keyboard and mouse.

      A mouse (and especially a touchpad) -- that's a crappy interface device for a civilization that can't manufacture good touch devices and program good touch software.

      And yes, I prefer using a keyboard and mouse most of the time. I grew up on it. Same reason I prefer QWERTY, and the same reason I'm good with our ridiculous units of time.

    9. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by reboot246 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Windows 8.1 beating 8.0 is like a polished turd beating the original turd. It's still a turd.

      Maybe 9 will be better . . .

    10. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Informative

      People have nearly always put their damned fingers on the screen when they wanted things to happen.

      Since when? I've never seen anyone put their damned fingers on a PC screen and expect it to do something.

      A mouse (and especially a touchpad) -- that's a crappy interface device for a civilization that can't manufacture good touch devices and program good touch software.

      About the only things a touchsceen is better at than a keyboard and mouse are finger painting, or clicking huge icons in a fast food store. For anything that requires any kind of precision, a touchscreen is an appallingly bad interface.

    11. Re:12.64 percent in only 17 months by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Please explain then, how the (according to slashdot, idiot) non-technical Mac userbase has a 51% uptake of Mavericks inside of 12 months? No, it doesn't automatically deploy, and no, 51% of the Mac userbase is not on 12 month old hardware. I'll offer a hypothesis: Mavericks offers things end Mac end-users want. Windows 8 does not offers things Windows users want.

      The explanation is that Mavericks is a free upgrade, while Windows 8 is not. A correct analogy with Mavericks would be that the free Window 8.1 update has passed 50% within 3 months of release.

  2. dont want it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i dont want 8.1 if it means signing up with fucking microsoft/windowslive id to get it, fuck off

  3. Meanwhile at Apple WWDC by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Apple is boasting an over 50% uptake in Mavericks userbase, I see.

    --
    READY.
    PRINT ""+-0
  4. Sorry, that's me by BoberFett · · Score: 4, Funny

    I turn on my Windows XP box every other day just to mess with the statistics.

    Actually it's because I still have my homemade porn on it, I haven't moved it to my new computer yet...