Windows XP Falls Below 25% Market Share, Windows 8 Drops Slightly

An anonymous reader writes: Despite support for Windows XP finally ending three months ago, the ancient OS has only now fallen below the 25 percent market share mark. To add to the bad news for Microsoft, after only nine full months of availability, its latest operating system version, Windows 8.1, has lost share for the first time. For desktop browser share, Chrome is up, taking mostly from Internet Explorer and Firefox. For mobile browsers, Safari continues to fall while Chrome maintains strong growth.

Re:Who has the market share?

[vux984]

The only idiots who like using those "apps" are the ones who would probably be better off with a tablet or smartphone instead of an actual desktop computer,

I like the netflix app, that's about it.

Ok, maybe I'm just a bitter throwback who's resentful that my desktop is being marginalized.

The pendulum looks to be swinging back towards sensibility from 8 to 8.1 to what we've seen of 9.

Maybe it's also because I hate the new skeuomorphic design aesthetic.

I don't think skeuomorphic means what you think it does.

But regardless, for those in marketing change is king, so these things are cyclical, and we'll just endlessly circle around a good UI without ever settling down and saying "nailed it". :)

Re:Who has the market share?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

That's a shame.

When i left Mac for windows in 1999 it was because windows had games - It wasn't hard for anyone who wanted computer games back then to make the decision - 3 aisles worth of windows games, or a shelf of mac games. I tell the mac (apple) lovers that the single biggest mistake apple did was to listen to the engineer that crapped on computer gaming.

If Open source would focus on Gaming - then the masses WILL flock over and get on board. Make a Distro that ports games automatically - make it stupidly easy to use, and the market share of Apple and Microsoft will tank.

Computer Gaming put Microsoft in the masses households. If it hadn't been for gamers, PCs would of still been a basement Nerd hobby today.

Re:Who has the market share?

[loufoque]

I don't understand this focus on games.
Who cares about video games on their computers apart from kids?

People who use computers are looking for devices they can can use to do useful things.

Re:Who has the market share?

[jbolden]

Poor adoption rate is their big problem

How is that their big problem? They don't need high adoption. Moreover they control the supply of Windows 7 licenses they can resolve the adoption problem very easily. Today Windows 8.1 sells with downgrade rights to and Windows 7 Professional and Windows Vista Business. Tomorrow they eliminate that. If adoption was their problem the solution is trivial.

: Touch screens make sense for certain form factors, but not for desktops. Search the term "gorilla arm" to see why.

That's nonsense. That's not how touch works on a desktop system. On a desktop the separate monitor blows up and provides context for a tablet that provides a detailed view. Example: http://terrywhite.com/wp-conte... [terrywhite.com]

This is the setup artists have been using for years.

The desktop is not a "legacy" platform.

Yes it is. The massive conversion to laptops show that. The sales data for 6 years clearly show that. You may not like that it is a legacy platform, Microsoft doesn't but it is.

. It's a platform that's very specifically optimized for getting work done with a keyboard, mouse, and large form factor screen.

That's like saying the carriage is not a legacy transportation system because it is specifically optimized for getting places on dirt paths with a horse. A fixed large factor screen rather than plugging into available multi factor screens is legacy. Using a mouse is legacy. Mandatory keyboard is legacy.

as the business world has demonstrated loud and clear by their absolute refusal to move to Windows 8.

The business world is being moved from XP to Windows 7. Windows 8 doesn't serve much purpose for them yet. It wasn't designed for them. However as the office division is the biggest advocates of the new style GUIs they will be moved. Office Division has clearly indicated they want to move to touch mandatory.

and they're slowly backing off of the ridiculous notion that their desktop OS should behave like a tablet.

We'll see. You are assuming a lot. My guess is that desktop as they move to Windows 9, 10, 11 gets treated more and more like a foreign guest OS of the hypervisor with Metro/NewGUI being the main interface for everything. The way they handled the start button with creating an entire paradigm for programmability of bottom icons for interface pages indicates they don't want the desktop page to resume as the standard.

So far only OneNote and Lync have really thought through touch. If Office 2015 has more that says something. If they dump the touch Lync client that says they are abandoning touch to be stuck in the shrinking desktop ghetto forever.