Windows 7, like it or not
Four ways Microsoft will make it increasingly difficult to stick with Windows XP
Enterprise installed base. Source: Forrester
When Microsoft (MSFT) launches Windows 7 next week, its biggest competitor — especially in the multi-user enterprises that are its target market — will not be Linux or Apple's (AAPL) Mac OS X, but Windows XP.
Eight years after its launch, and nearly three years after Microsoft began shipping Windows Vista (its putative successor), XP is still the operating system most likely to be installed on a new PC in 81% of IT departments, according to a new Forrester Research poll.
Microsoft made it easy for IT decision makers to do what they are naturally predisposed to do — stick with what they know. Steve Balmer is not going make that mistake again, judging from a report published Thursday by Forrester analyst Benjamin Gray.
"Factors are converging," he writes, "that will provide IT managers with a compelling reason to shake the status quo, finally ending Windows XP’s corporate reign."
Gray, who last year give his clients five reasons to switch to Vista, now offers the timetable by which Microsoft will make life increasingly difficult for anyone who wants to keep supporting Windows XP.
Windows Net share shrank 3.68% year to year
Microsoft (MSFT) Windows ended the first quarter of 2009 with an Internet market share — as measured by Web hits — of 88.14%, 3.37 points (or 3.68%) smaller than last year, according to preliminary data released overnight Tuesday by the Web metrics firm Net Applications.
In the same period, Apple's (AAPL) Mac OS's Net share grew to 9.77%, up 2.29 points (30.61%) and the iPhone's grew to 0.49%, up 0.34 points (226.67%).
Net Applications’ monthly surveys are conducted by sampling browser data from some 160 million visits to websites operated by the firm’s clients. The company describes the results as “market shares,” but they do not actually measure share of market in the traditional sense of revenue or unit sales. They do, however, provide a consistent methodology by which to gauge operating system trends. (See Ars Technica for a good review of the different ways to measure Mac market share.)
To see the Net Application's April 1 report, click here. The year-to-year comparisons are summarized in the table below.
Note that the Sony (SNE) Playstation — once a contender — has fallen off the chart, and Sun Microsystems’ (JAVA) Java ME (widely used in cell phone applications) has found its way on.
Below the fold: a spreadsheet showing the changes between February and March, which were minor.
See also: Competitors gaining on the iPhone
Apple's Net share slipped in February
The numbers are still in flux, but preliminary figures released Sunday morning by Net Applications show Apple's (AAPL) Internet market share dropping a couple percent in February.
One chart shows Mac OS X with a 9.61% share, down from 9.93% in January. Another puts the share at 9.71%, down 2.22% for the month. The latter seems consistent with other data in the report and is likely to withstand review.
In a separate report, the Web metrics company took its first detailed look at mobile Web browsing and found the iPhone with a "commanding lead" over its such rival systems as Windows Mobile and Google's (GOOG) Android. As Net Applications measured it — a big caveat, it turns out — 66.61% of mobile Web searches in February were made from iPhones. See here.
In the broader search market, Microsoft (MSFT) Windows in its several versions continues to dominate Web traffic with a 88.42% share (or 89.37%, depending which chart you believe), up a smidgen from January. Among the also-rans, Linux was up more than 6% for the month, to 0.88%.
Net Applications’ monthly surveys are conducted by sampling browser data from some 160 million visits to websites operated by the firm’s clients. The company describes the results as “market shares,” but they do not actually measure share of market in the traditional sense of revenue or unit sales. They do, however, provide a consistent methodology by which to gauge operating system trends. (See Ars Technica for a good review of the different ways to measure Mac market share.)
To see Net Applications' March 1 report, click here. The results are summarized in the table below.
Apple Mac hits record 6.81% market share in Net Applications survey
After taking a brief October dip in advance of Leopard's release, Apple's (AAPL) share of the operating system market grew 3.34% in November to hit a record 6.81%, according to the results of a Net Applications survey issued today.
Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows in its various flavors continues to dominate with a 92.42% share, as measured by the Web metrics firm. Among the operating systems gathered in the "other" category are Linux (.57%), Apple's iPhone (.09%), Sony's Playstation (.02%), SunOS (.01%) and Nintendo's Wii (.01%).
Net Applications' monthly surveys do not measure market share in terms of computer systems sold. Rather, they sample data from visitors to some 40,000 websites operated by their clients. As such, their findings are probably better described as a snapshot of installed base taken from a less than random sample. But they do reflect market share trends, and it's always interesting to compare their results with those from firms like Gartner and IDC, which track quarterly shipments.
Net Applications' October report, for example, showed Apple with a 6.61% market share. A couple weeks earlier, IDC had calculated Apple's domestic market share in terms of units shipped in the 3rd quarter at 6.3% while Gartner's estimate for the same period came in at 8.1%. (link)
Net Applications' November results are summarized in the table below:
