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Windows 8 and 8.1 Pass 15% Market Share, Windows XP Drops Below 20% Mark
An anonymous reader writes Everyone is well-aware by now that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have not seen the impressive adoption rate of their predecessor. Yet the duo had a particularly good run last month, finally passing 15 percent market share together. Together, they owned 16.80 percent of the market at the end of October, up from 12.26 percent at the end of September. Windows XP meanwhile dropped a whopping 6.69 points to 17.18 percent. The biggest catalyst for these changes was most likely back to school sales in September, which are better reflected in the data after students use their new machines for a full month.
Come on, it's 2014, and slashdot is still using that broken windows avatar for Windows stories.
Not only it that "joke" not funny anymore, it's not even true. Windows might not be great, but its hardly broken like in the days of 95 or 98.
It is long past time you grow up and use the correct logo.
FTA: "These gains did not come at the expense of Windows 7, which still managed to grow 0.34 points to 53.05 percent."
s/©//g
It's interesting that while 8.1 is around 10%-ish, 8 is still about 5%. Considering 8.1 is a free update for registered copies of 8, how many of the un-updated copies of 8 are pirated versions?
What percentage windows has captured of the overall device market, instead of just the desktop market.
I wonder how many of Windows 8.X's sales are "forced", IE, preinstalled on a PC that a consumer bought because they needed a PC, not because they wanted Windows 8? Stipulating that the consumer is not a geek, and not aware that they might be able to ask for Windows 7 preinstalled instead?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
and I swore a lot less at Win98 than I did at 8.0. Win8.1 is useable, but still bites at your fingers now and again.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Based on past experience, most of those Windows 8 and 8.1 purchases are home and student based. Businesses are either exercising their Windows 8 downgrade rights and sticking with Windows 7 Pro, or holding out for a true successor, possibly being Windows 10.
Life is not for the lazy.
I thought linux is like 20%. One percent is sort of like "other" in my book.
Linux's market share in desktop PCs is pretty much a rounding error. Always has been and that isn't likely to change soon. You'll find plenty of linux in mobile and servers but not in desktop or laptop PCs.
I have to say... I have three Windows 8.0 Pro licences that I purchased at launch when they were cheap... I've tried it several times, never could stand it, just wasn't finished...
Recently I bought a new Dell laptop that came with Windows 8.1 and was pleasantly surprised at the improvements.
While my main machine will probably run Windows 7 until Windows 10 comes out, I've upgraded several other machines from 7 to 8.1 now using my existing licenses.
I have to say, had Windows 8 launched as 8.1 stands today, I think most of the hate would have been gone, it is "cleaned up" and an improvement in many ways over 8.0.
Looking forward to 10...
Apple OS represents a culture and not a technical solution.
The popularity of MacBooks at Linux and Unix conferences indicate you are wrong. Mac won the desktop Unix battle. Consumer friendly GUI on top, with a lot of off-the-shelf commercial support. BSD Unix underneath, most FOSS applications run just fine on Mac OS X. Very few apps are Linux specific.
Personally most *nix things that I need to do can be accomplished on a Mac quite nicely. I mainly use Linux for embedded devices and headless servers sitting in the closet. I have a dual-boot PC with Windows for gaming but I rarely boot into Linux.
I don't really see any difference between the Windows 8 desktop and the Windows 7 desktop - other than the Start button. Do you mean the OPTIONAL Windows Metro UI? No need to ever use that, you know...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Since this is usage stats. Lets looks at client usage stats on internet:
Windows 57.12%
Linux 20.12%
Apple 18.04%
Other 4.74%
Stats are from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
So yes Linux has come a long way. Windows may still own the desktop. Market share in what is though of as the PC-market (desktop/laptop/nettbook) its only 1.64% today. But in market share of the computers that are used to surf on the net, supercomputers, servers real time system there Linux are thriving.
Linux is in second place and increasing in the IT that folks use today
Just saying it like it are.
i would rather deal with unsupported XP with viruses than the steaming dog turd called windows 8. it was the most infuriating UI I have ever had the displeasure of using, and I lived through the rise and fall of macromedia flash websites
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I would posit that new sales (where the consumer doesn't have a choice) is responsible for the Win8 numbers rising. From the feedback I get from my friends and acquaintances it doesn't seem to be from consumers making a "choice" that they want Win8. And I really have to question XP dropping below 20%, at least in a business environment. I generally see about 50/50 between Win7 and XP among our customers and the businesses we come in contact with. And everywhere I go XP still appears to be the dominant OS behind retailer's POS systems. We have upgraded a fair number of our customers to Win7 Pro (as many as we could convince) but there is still more than 20% of them on XP. Not sure who "venturebeat" is, but look around, the numbers just don't seem quite accurate.
C:\> shutdown /t 1
Just like before