Windows XP Drops Below 40% Market Share While Windows 8 Passes 1% 310
An anonymous reader writes "Just three months ago, we reported how Windows 7 had finally overtaken Windows XP in terms of market share. Now it's time to see how long it takes Windows 8 to succeed its predecessors. Between October to November, Windows XP fell to 39.82 percent while Windows 8 jumped to 1.09 percent."
I Wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if win8 will ever pass the xp market share
Our way or the FLOSS way (Score:5, Interesting)
I support a lot of XP machines and in general the owners still love the OS because they are familiar with it. It's going to be around for a long, long time. I predict marketshare will continue dropping as it has until it reaches about 10% where it'll stabilize for a couple years despite being completely unsupported, losing perhaps 1-2% per year after that until completely dropping off the radar.
MS is in a unique position with their OS because in general all new PCs ship with the newest version of Windows. So they can force Windows 8 into the market just by refusing to license it to OEMs for default installs and then waiting long enough for consumers to upgrade their hardware. That takes years, but as we saw with Windows 7 it's a predictable and regular process.
The only question is, will MS stick to their guns and force this paradigm shift, or will they relent like they did with Vista and make Windows 8 a short-lived intermediate OS for whatever comes next? Maybe the next version of Windows will see a return to a more classic desktop paradigm similar to Windows 7, with metro being entirely optional. Maybe the next version will split into two, metro being aimed at consumer and tablet hardware and a Windows 7 style OS to keep corporate users happy. Sadly, I think the most likely outcome will be the first one. MS isn't going to relent. This is what they want their OS to be and that's the last word. "Corporate world, you better get used to it. You know you can't ditch Windows, Office, and Exchange." They're betting on the pain of switching to Linux or OS X (which strangely could now provide a more familiar experience to Windows users than MS's newest offering) being worse than the pain of learning this new family of software. And I think they'll get away with it just by shear momentum. To hurry adoption along even more I expect them to be more aggressive with Windows 7's EOL schedule than they were with XP, which was generous to start and then extended.
Re:I really don't like Windows 8 (Score:5, Interesting)
There are few advantages, such as minor performance improvements and some of the Metro apps are actually quite nice for a notebook or tablet: IE10, Windows Mail, the 3rd party Wikipedia and Khan Academy apps. That being said, I felt that the constant flicking through Start screen, Desktop and Metro apps was ultimately rather painful. They really are like two worlds that don't integrate at all. Also, the graphics are crappy. You could say it is minimalism, but I see it just as having no style at all. Just look at the startup logo or the volume indicator popup as examples. As a little side issue, I experienced audio buffer underruns which does not happen under Win7 with the same laptop.
For a Joe Sixpack machine, I suppose Win8 is just fine. For a power user desktop, it's a turd.
Re:I Wonder? (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh boy, I sure can't wait to install an OS with a phone interface on my desktop/laptop, that makes so much sense!
That's what I said too. But as a technologist I need to keep my hand in with operating systems so I installed Win 8 on my mac through bootcamp.
It's kind of rough around the edges, but it's still better than most Linux desktops, and better in many ways.
I'm not convinced that the general public will pick up on this, but Win 8 is probably a better fit for inexperienced users than anything else out there right now.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I Wonder? (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh boy, I sure can't wait to install an OS with a phone interface on my desktop/laptop, that makes so much sense!
Of course it makes sense . . . for Microsoft. You see, you're not supposed to use a keyboard or mouse to interface with your Windows 8 desktop/laptop. You're supposed to use your Windows 8 Phone, connected to your desktop/laptop, as your interface. Your Windows 8 Phone is the keyboard and mouse. This means that every Windows 8 desktop/laptop user will need to buy a Windows 8 Phone, as well. Microsoft is doing this because their Nokia subsidiary is not doing so well, because Nokia is selling Windows 8 Phones, instead of iPhones or Androids. Or Blackberries.
So you don't need to worry about installing a phone interface on your desktop/laptop. You will be using your Windows 8 Phone to interface with it anyway.
Does that sound bizarre enough for a Sunday morning?
Re:You've never tried Windows 8 then (Score:5, Interesting)
If it runs so well, how do you explain that those metro programs are total pigs in terms of running them? I have a fairly fast computer with SSD and even microsoft's metro apps take 10 seconds to open. On the same computer, photoshop takes 3.5 seconds to open. It just painful to watch those those full screen loading screens for applications which are gui-wise not much complex than win3.1 programs.
Revealed to the world: It's all me (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, despite not being in the IT business for years, I am the one my friends call when their desktops and laptops take 10 minutes to boot, clog up with viral effluent of try to VM-swap in too little physical memory.
But I try to head it off. Whenever I spy someone who's just acquired -- or is just starting to grapple with -- some Windows 7 or Vista computer I suggest, "hey, bring it over and I'll take a snapshot of the disk, then clean it and load XP onto it. If it doesn't work out I'll restore the image and we will at least have tried..."
About 40% of them take me up on the offer. 60% don't, and I do not hear from those again until things have gotten really out of hand. And if I had made the offer and they turned it down I'm inclined to suggest maybe it's time to invest in a new computer.
So they buy a brand new one, Windows 7/Vista raises one more point in market share, they 'donate' their old machine to me (and I slap XP on it right-quick) and all is right with the world.
Though in the years since Vista was introduced in '05, I seem to have experienced an overall 60% reduction in friends. Time to buy some more on Facebook!
Re:I Wonder? (Score:5, Interesting)
So use the desktop interface then. It's still there.
You should have a look at this usability report [useit.com] which will help you understand it better. Basic summary: applications are written for either the desktop or the Metro interface. Where the apps are written for a particular interface you have to use that interface to use the app. There are some places where two different apps have the same name on both sides (for example "Internet Explorer" exists as both a Metro and a Desktop app) but you can see that they are separate from the way that they don't show the same Window list. Imagine the confusion which can happen if you use "Metro Internet Explorer" started from another metro app and then a desktop app also opens "Classic Internet Explorer".
All this confusiion adds up to an interface which very much slows down and confuses the user.
Re:I really don't like Windows 8 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I really don't like Windows 8 (Score:5, Interesting)
It was an example. What happens when you want to run a program and it is only available in metro? Drag and drop to Word? Nope.
Here's another example. I often have documentation opened up in a PDF reader while I program. I alt-tab back and forth. Windows comes with a PDF reader, but it runs in Metro-land. Metro land automatically closes applications when it decides you are done with them, including my documentation. Oh, well, back to a Desktop-land PDF app.
It's just a pain in the ass for no good reason.