Windows market share dives to new low

[onehandle]

Source: Techworld

Windows has suffered its biggest US market share dive in the last two years, an Internet measurement company has reported, sending the operating system's share under 90 percent for the first time.

In November, 89.6 percent of users who connected to the websites that Net Applications monitors did so from systems powered by Windows, a drop of 0.84 of a percentage point from October. The decrease was the largest slip by Windows in the last two years, and easily bested other recent down months, including May 2008 and December 2007, when Windows lost 0.51 and 0.63 percentage points, respectively.

Apple's Mac OS X, meanwhile, posted its biggest gain in the same two-year period, growing by 0.66 percentage point to end the month at 8.9 percent. November was the third month running that Apple's operating system remained above 8 percent.

Read more: http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=107854

[Atman]

1. Apple is dead!

Where do I get my Microsoft tatoo?

:rofl:

.

[MineralMan]

9. It comes automatically with

Windows, version 6.6.6. Wait for it. You'll love it. You'll need it.

[DS1]

2. Oh no! It's .4% under 90

:scared:

[meegbear]

4. Be ascared ...

be very ascared.

[DemzRock]

3. Anyone for Linux? n/t

[HillWilliam]

10. I haven't used anything but Linux

for years. Don't miss Windoze a bit. Anything Windoze can do, Linux can do better. For free. I run my businesses on it because I am WAY too busy to screw with OS problems. They've finally got Linux down to a friendly, don't-need-to-be-a-geek package. The new Fedora update system and the Add/Remove software system is more reliable than Windoze. Every time we get Windoze updates at work, there's days of upset and crashes. Meh. At home, everything just rocks on fine.

MS is getting everything it has asked for.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

20. Yup.

Lately, XP updates have this great added bonus to them: The computer stops booting into the desktop.

Noooo...they aren't trying to push people to Vista. Much.

[eilen]

32. OMG

I was wondering why my computer was doing this. I have a pc with xp on it I use for some programs that don't run on Mac. It appears that my computer goes into a coma every time it is "updated" and I have to reboot it. I don't use it very often but it is a PIA.

[Gore1FL]

21. Not DirectX

I'd move off of window except for 2 basic reasons:

1> I like to use my PC as a giant atari at times.

2> I am a Windows system admin and experiment a lot at home.

[HillWilliam]

23. I used to do Windoze admin

now I sleep peacefully undisturbed the whole night through :)

We may be pushed to Vista at my day-job some time in the future. I do development for Pocket-PC's (Symbol Barcode units, Mobile 5 and 6 based). Most of that is pretty forgiving though. We're putting that off as long as possible. Even my boss hated Vista. None of the Symbol development stuff would even load on it, so that put the ky-bosh on it pretty quick.

I run my wedding business and farm stuff on Linux cuz mostly I'm way too busy to do admin stuff at home any more. I just need to fling stuff together and have it "just go". Much before Core 8 RedHat didn't have the upgrade stuff worked out, but as of Core 9 it's really sweet. Wish I had time for games (there's a megaton of them out there) but I just don't. Between choring an DUing (hey, I'm down to one vice!) I'm usually either writing or scheduling or inventorying or somedangthing.

I gave my partner (totally not computer-literate) a Linux machine of his own. He manages just fine. I manage the both from my desktop here (which is to say about zero management at all).

[bowens43]

11. I've used Linux for a couple of years. Love it.

and the price is right

[L0oniX]

12. FreeBSD ...Mac uses a variant of it. Unix base OS with gui KDE desktop.

[alfredo]

30. Looking for a used laptop for Linux. Need something to knock about

with when I can't be here at home.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. Linux user since 1998.

Mostly SuSE.

[bitchkitty]

25. I like Linux too!

Although I have a Mac for home. I wouldn't host a web site on anything but 'Nix!

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[larf007]

6. nah

what they don't tell you is people with enough dough to get all apple peaks at about 15%. A gain of .66 %. LOL

[ben_meyers]

7. Does the Apple I-Phone figure into the numbers?

3 of my kids and 5 of the grandkids access the Internets almost exclusively from their I-phones now, do they count as an Apple OS?

[Xithras]

14. Yes

The phones run IPhone OSX and use the Safari browser. I'm sure they're part of those stats.

[alfredo]

31. They are becoming laptop replacements.

[MineralMan]

8. Oh, no!

My computer is 10.4% obsolete. Whatever will I do? Guess I'll have to go with Linux. That's the coming thing, I hear.

[L0oniX]

13. Vista sucks and people are tired of having to fork out more money for new software...

to work with the new MS shit. Having to replace hardware to work with Vista pisses of gamers who pay $500+ for a fast state of the art video card. Planned OS obsolescence sucks and Ms deserves to take a dive.

[Xithras]

15. Apple really isn't any better in the obsolescence department.

IIRC, Apple is working on the seventh release of OSX as we speak. Apple also has a nasty and notorious habit of refusing to make new features available for earlier releases as a way to force people to purchase those newer versions. I remember the flap over Apple's refusal to patch cover flow into the iPod video's a couple of years ago, and Jobs response was simply, "When Apple releases a product, it's done. If you want the new feature, buy the new system."

This came despite the fact that Apples own internal developers have admitted that the 60/80 gb video iPod's shared the same underlying hardware and firmware as the newer iPods and that the feature could be implemented "in under 15 minutes". Keeping existing customers happy took a backseat to driving new sales.

That was the moment when I decided that my Mini wouldn't be replaced.

[Grinchie]

18. How timely, Windows losing Market Share, and Intel promoting ESP

I used to be a real Microsoft enthusiast. Writing software for the Platform was easy and relatively painless. Then Microsoft decided that it needed to follow the Automotive industry of planned obsolescence in order to drive annual growth.

They started down the path od annual upgrades that exponentially doubled the number of uprgrades, patches and bug fixes required to keep a system running optimally. Then, when growth stopped in the consumer sector, they starting bleeding the Developers that put them on top by charging for tools and information that was once free. They also turned MSCE into a money making channel that initiated a worldwide glut of training centers who now had control of who would work for who, generally driving out the innovators and the researchers that saw through the MSCE title as nothing more that Rote learning and another name for exclusionary licensing practices. Not to mention the addition thousands of dollars wringed out of professionals while at the same time their jobs were being shipped off shore.

We trained the H1-B's how to think with real world logic and they promptly grew tired of the American dream and went back home with all of their knowledge, only to start up companies like Tata and Infosys, which actively courted american corporations with the seductive promise of low labor costs.

I was looking at Intel Corporation today, researching their current trends after seeing their stock at an all time low of about 12 bucks.

I used to work there, and I have a great admiration for the smart people that work their. However, it appears that Intel has lost its way, and is trapped in the rampant Consumerism and Planned Obsolescence model like Microsoft.

One of their current research efforts is ESP or Environmentally Sensitive Computing. Some of the examples they use are being able to identify a particular individual by the way they handle a TV remote, using accellerometers and other sensors to gather real world information for machine recognition.

I cannot tell you how invasive this technology could become, coupled with the already disturbing push to use RFID tags everywhere, including the small farmers dozen or so chickens if he ever wanted to sell them at the market.

I still use Windows XP, and I was one of the 380,000 people that petitioned Microsoft to keep XP alive and fix it, instead of scrapping it for new, untested drivers, written in some boiler room in Mumbai for devices that were never seen there before 5 years ago.

The lack of accountability in todays Corporate world is incredibly worrisome, and it pervades every major investment we deal with, where it be consumer electronics, Automobiles, Water Supply, and most insidiously Insurance companies, which apparently can change their policies at will, and then refuse to discuss it with you, because they can't explain it themselves.

MS and Intel are on the same path as GM, and although they did not kill the Electric Car like GM did, they are well of their way of becoming obsolete in this crisis of confidence that Technology makes our lives better. It can, but today the enormous resources of computing are exploited by the Corporations and mass media to dumb down the Sheeple.

[CRF450]

29. Planned OS obsolescence? WTF?

Most of that was not Windows fault, 3rd party software makers were draggin their asses pretty slow to make compatable software and updates for older hardware when they should have been ready and reliable from the start. Thats not an issue anymore now as new software and hardware products are compatible. I have Vista SP1 64bit on a 4 month old laptop, and a newly built gaming computer, no big issues what so ever. My dad also has Vista and it hasent given him any problems either.

It does have a slight decrease in gaming performance over XP but why complain about that? Games are still playing smoothly on a properly built pc with Vista.

[LanternWaste]

16. Under 90%-- a new low...

Under 90%-- a new low. That seems an almost absurd statement (although I realize it's not).

To me, it's akin to saying, "This news JUST in... Generalissimo Fransisco Franco is still dead..." :evilgrin:

[HopeHoops]

17. Sometime around 1987 or so, there were more C=64 boxes in use than all other PCs combined.

Sigh.

[TommyO]

19. Those were the days!

I went through a Vic-20, a C=64, a C=128 (running GEOS), an Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000, a slew of Windows machines, and now my nearly three-year old PowerMac G5.

Ah, the memories (and memory), along with umpteen thousand dollars spent.

[bemildred]

22. Yay for competition. Monopoly is bad for consumers. nt

[bitchkitty]

26. Good - people should have more choices.

I'd love to see Mac becoming more popular. I'm tired of sites that only work on a Windoze OS, i.e. Netflix.

Mac rocks for CS3. There is no comparison.

[Jack_DeLeon]

27. Ubuntu 4tw

n/t

[TrogL]

28. We have Vista at the office. Ooooooooh what a nightmare

I haven't had a PC lock up like that since Windows 3.1.

[robcon]

33. I'm in the 89.6% majority.

I just got a new Windows machine with Vista.

So far, so good. Big improvement over my previous old, slow computer.