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Windows Drops Below 90% Market Share
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Dec 02, 2008 02:09 PM
from the easing-the-stranglehold dept.
from the easing-the-stranglehold dept.
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."
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Political and Technical Implications of GitTorrent 208 comments
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Good news (Score:5, Funny)
This is good news. It surely means the year of the Linux Desktop is impending.
Re:Good news (Score:5, Informative)
90% for windows.
8.9% for Mac
Meaning 1.1% for Linux and other Operating Systems.
It is Mac who is taking MS. Market Share, not Linux... Sorry. Just because we are all group together so it seems like we are a majority the truth is Linux users are in a small minority.
Parent
Re:Good news (Score:5, Informative)
90% for windows. 8.9% for Mac Meaning 1.1% for Linux and other Operating Systems.
ominous voice : There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of... oh forget that.
Oh man, just RTFA's links:
Percent for Jan Aug Nov
Windows 91.50 90.66 89.62
Mac 7.57 7.86 8.87
Linux 0.64 0.93 0.83
iPhone 0.13 0.30 0.37
Playstation 0.03 0.04 0.04
FreeBSD 0.00 0.00 0.01
Other 0.13 0.21 0.26
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9 [hitslink.com]
Parent
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that just a bit out of date?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.
Parent
Re:Good news (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately yes. I know a lot of windows users that use that IE tab or whatever it's called in Firefox. When I have mentioned a site being shit because it doesn't work in firefox, they say "yes it does" and tell me to get this IE tab thing. Then look confused when I tell them it doesn't work on Linux.
And these people are developers. Shitty ones that can only target IE, but employed developers nonetheless.
Parent
Ha! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
When my aunt wasn't able to install her MS Money on Vista, she thought her world was on fire
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's not apples gain in market share people were complaining about, it was the conclusion that desire to write viruses and market share have any significant correlation that they were probably modding you on.
Remember, not many mods follow the 'there is no -1 disagree for a reason' rule for modding.
That being said, I think the whole 8.9% market share in conjunction with Apple's "We're number 1" cheerleader commercial quite hilarious.
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
Good thing they're spending $300 million more on marketing, then! Maybe that Mojave thing we keep hearing about will turn things around for them.
Yeah, I can't avoid the sarcasm either.
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
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!"
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Funny)
Apple is not a cult.
See, no sarcasm.
Oh, I see...
Parent
Federal bailout? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Federal bailout? (Score:4, Funny)
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Monopoloy (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Monopoloy (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Monopoloy (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Popularity (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Monopoloy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Monopoloy (Score:5, Informative)
Guess you missed this antitrust lawsuit [informationweek.com] over the iPod?
Parent
Re:Monopoloy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Monopoloy (Score:5, Insightful)
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. [slashdot.org]
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.
Parent
Re:Monopoloy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Monopoloy (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
I believe it .... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
So, What's the *Actual* WinVista ONLY use? (Score:4, Insightful)
(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...
Not quite. (Score:5, Insightful)
The most important paragraph (Score:4, Insightful)
"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.
Re:The most important paragraph (Score:4, Insightful)
The same thing could be said about Linux actually. There are quite a few people who use Linux workstations at work, but have windows PCs at home (often because their home PC is a family PC). By your logic, I could say "people don't want to use Linux, but are forced to use it at work".
Phil
Parent
How do these people get their stats? (Score:4, Interesting)
I just don't trust these stats (and that's not because they don't say what I want them to), from the Net Applications [hitslink.com] site:
So it's all customers from some analytics service these guys own. But what type of sites use their service? It's hard to believe these figures do not have a built-in bias due to the types of sites providing them.
By far the most popular analytics service is Google Analytics.* If Google were to produce figures like these, I'd be more inclined to believe them, as their analytics software is used on a decent cross-section of sites, including technical ones like Slashdot.
My own data -- with bias due to having a technical audience -- across two sites, says roughly: Windows 75%; Mac 9%; Linux 13% (with 3% AWStats reports as 'Unknown', and other sundry OSs like BSD, OS/2, AmigaOS, BeOS etc.) None of my sites use Net Applications' software, and get around 125,000 visitors a month.
* Sorry I haven't a citation for this, but just look at the source code of almost any site and you'll see a Javascript block from Google Analytics. Also, see this unscientific evidence [google.com].
And Apple is near thier peak of marketshare (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple will NEVER get more than maybe 10% of the market. The company doesn't scale well. And they tie OSX to their hardware.
Let's say Apple releases Snow Leopard. It's the greatest OS known to man. it's 50% faster than 10.5, runs ALL Windows applications faster than Windows, has ZFS as the filesystem, and has zero security flaws.
Ok, great, let's run it. But I have to buy a machine from Apple. Now if I just want a machine, I can get one. But Apple has enough problems with releasing new systems with their 8% share now. What happens when this goes to 20%? 30%? They are bottlenecked by the number of systems they can produce. They physically can't get the number of systems out there to get any real marketshare. Is OSX better than Vista? No arguments here. But what already has more share? When you have one company releasing something, and everyone else releasing something else, Windows will win every time. It doesn't matter how great OSX is, or how shitty Windows is. Which this is something most people figured out ages ago. Except for the Apple people, who somehow think OSX can take over the world.
Now if they licensed OSX, and then you have Dell, HP, et.al. selling them, it's another thing. But Jobs will never do this, so talking about it is a moot point.
Re:And Apple is near thier peak of marketshare (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:And Apple is near thier peak of marketshare (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:sounds like... (Score:5, Funny)
You're right. Windows should stay where it belongs--on servers and in embedded systems.
Parent
Re:BSD is dead (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:BSD is dead (Score:5, Informative)
If you mean that OSX is a descendant of FreeBSD then you are mistaken.
OS X uses a Mach Kernel, but OS X and FreeBSD OSs include more than a kernel. Much of the OS X userspace is derived from FreeBSD and as such one can claim OS X a a descendent of NextStep (Mach), FreeBSD, and the original MacOS.
Parent
Pulling stats out of thin air (Score:4, Informative)
Hi twitter [slashdot.org].
EEE PC has sold more than 4 million, most of them GNU/Linux
Really? I must admit I didn't know much about this but a little bit of Google reveals this interview [laptopmag.com] with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen, which I think was also reported here on Slashdot (about the return rates for Linux devices, which he seems to invalidate):
Here's another article where Shen is also quoted about the ratio of XP to Linux EEE units sold, which he says is 60:40:
So obviously you're just making that up. Nothing like bogus facts and words like "laughable" and "undeniable" to get on moderators' good graces, eh?
Parent
Re:Pulling stats out of thin air (Score:5, Funny)
There is no such thing as a bogus fact.
[citation needed]
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Re:Pulling stats out of thin air (Score:5)
Parent
Re:Will someone please think of the XP users? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Will someone please think of the XP users? (Score:5, Informative)
Bad upper management decisions doomed CompUSA - such as focusing on advertising printers that had no real profit, instead of advertising their formerly lucrative (and always profitable) Tech Services and Business Services divisions. By the time people in upper management were changed out with people who understood this, the company didnt have the money to fix the problem (though they did come up with very viable plans to do so - just couldnt get the backing at that point).
PCs and Windows sales had nothing to do with it. Do you have any idea how many people didnt even know we repaired PCs? Or that we had a Business Sales and Services department? Or that we offered training on a variety of things?
The above, and no longer catering to the core customers that maintained their profitability were the cause.
I know... I was there.
Parent
Re:Measurement (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know if their clients are U.S. only or Worldwide.
Also in that report, it shows that Firefox use broke 20% for the first time ever at the expense of Internet Explorer.
Parent
Re:This will likely keep happening until.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:The Big news: Linux failed. (Score:5, Interesting)
> Linux seems to have completely failed to capitalize on Vistas unpopularity,
> still having less than 1% market share.
Patience. The netbook appears to be the crack that the penguin has been waiting for. If I had told you three years ago that I forsaw Linux being sold in Target and ToysRUs you would have laughed. Honestly, I would laughed too because I didn't see it coming either. But seeing is believing.
To date we have faced a chicken and the egg problem. Nobody wanted to try selling Linux because nobody had ever succeeded selling Linux. Everybody believed that (Mac excepted, those people are just wierd) all PCs were Windows sales, largely because Microsoft would brutally punish any OEM who didn't agree. All that is now changed. We now know that Linux can be successfully sold in retail environments when correctly executed. ASUS reports return rates sililar to Windows while Acer's less polished implementation was a disaster, thus the correct lesson will be learned; do it right and it sells.
And just wait for the pricepoints on netbooks to shift even lower. Microsoft will either be forced to abandon the segment (fatal) or slash prices to levels that will have Wall Street analysts howling for blood.
Once everyone has completed the mental adjustment to retail Linux as a done deal the whole industry will have to take a long hard look at one of the (if not THE) most expensive components in a lower end PC. If ordinary people will buy an EEE or a Dell Mini 9 with Linux, would they buy a low end desktop (of the sort that won't play current FPS games anyway) if the level of integration were similar? Expect to find out the answer to that question over the next year or two. Will Crossover/Transgaming have a part to play in the final solution? Looking at how Parallels, VMWare and/or Crossover Mac are on display anywhere Mac software is sold I'd put my money on yes.
Parent
Re:The Big news: Linux failed. (Score:5, Interesting)
> But they're not. They're putting bigger screens, keyboards, and drives in them.
Because for most of the year an EEE PC on a shelf was about as rare as a Wii. So if you can sell every box you can ship the decision of which to make more of is a simple one. The one with the best profit. That was the 900 series. But ASUS is promising to finally hit their original $200 MSRP next year. And if they don't there are countless generic Chinese houses with products entering the channels and some of those don't even have an x86 compatible CPU so Windows isn't really an option.
When the latest ARM chips finally make it into actual products the whole game is likely to be changed yet again. Imagine a two pound netbook with 10+ hours of battery life with enough DSP grunt to be able to do Flash, YouTube and mpeg4 playback. And it just might be able to run compiz. That will change everything. The great weakness that to date nobody has been able to exploit with Windows is the fact they killed off all their ports and have tied their fortunes to the fate of x86. No x86 on a development map gets near the 1W under load power consumption mark and the notion of idle power in the single digit milliwatt range is fantasy. ARM is already there.
So be patient, those netbooks in blister packs hanging as impulse purchases are the future. And Windows isn't likely to be a part of that future.
Parent