Windows 7 appears to have gained market share. On the other hand Windows Vista & Windows XP have lost market share in September 2009; Vista, for the first time in 2 years.
According to Web metrics firm Net Applications, Vista dropped 0.2 percentage points during September to end the month at an 18.6% slice of the operating system pie. It was the first decline for Vista since a 0.3 percentage-point slip in January 2008.
The share of Windows 7 is expected to increase further, after its official launch this month.
Windows Vista will have peaked at less than a 19% market share, and at its most popular, accounted for only one-in-five Windows machines.
In comparison, Windows XP, Microsoft’s eight-year-old operating system, accounted for 71.5% of all operating systems powering computers that connected to the Web last month, and ran more than three-fourths of all Windows PCs.
I get a kick of statistics about which version of windows is gaining or losing….
It is not like people are actually choosing which version they want.
If you buy a new computer, you get the latest version of windows that M$ is pushing and requiring computer sellers to install on their products, so of course the latest “wonder” – windows 7 – is gaining — DAH?
I’ve been in Data Processing (call it IS, MIS, IT – whatever you like) for 37+ years from beginner programmer to Sr. Systems Programmer and have worked with just about everything out there – hardware and software – as well as having designed, coded, tested, implemented, and supported software from simple programs to network communications software and compilers.
M$ has only one goal in mind – profit.
Sure, that’s what companies do – try to make money.
But please – stop all of this crap about how each new version of windows (created to make more money) is the greatest thing to come down the pike.
It might suffice for the average computer owner but for a professional this nonsense of changing interfaces is ridiculous and a pain in the rear end.
You should only change a user interface if you absolutely have to. You don’t make changes simply to be making changes.
Example of one of the simplest and worst changes M$ ever made – the addition of the “close window” button in the right hand corner of windows in windows 98 (it might have been there in 95 but I was spared having to use 95).
In 3.x releases of windows, the Maximize/Restore button was in the upper right hand corner and many people would fly their mouse cursor up there blindly to resize a window.]
Along comes 98 and – surprise – you close the window instead.
I have absolutely no agreement with adding a close window button but it should not have been placed where there already was a button.
It should have been placed to the right of the two existing buttons – period!
I suggest everyone read “Programming as if People Mattered” (http://www.amazon.com/Programming-as-if-People-Mattered/dp/0691037639) for a sensible, profoundly realistic understanding of programming as though the people to use your software actually matter.
If everyone at M$ read it and took it to heart, Window xxxxx would be quite a system – fat chance.
AND – who appointed M$ as the universal expert as to which way computer usage should go?
Bob