The hidden story of Windows 7’s market share
Recent figures showing Windows 7 more widely used than Mac OS show that people are rapidly switching to Microsoft’s latest system. But they also give an interesting insight into exactly who is – and isn’t – making the leap.
As Dave Parrack noted, figures from last weekend showed an average of 5.07 percent of Internet users were running Windows 7, a figure which topped the number using Mac OS during the week as a whole.
While that’s arguably not a fair comparison, it is clear that if Windows 7 hasn’t consistently leapfrogged Mac OS yet, that point is likely imminent. However, that really shouldn’t be a major surprise given the dominance of PCs over Macs. From Microsoft’s perspective, the more important element of the figures is that Windows 7 is outperforming Vista at the same stage: it took Vista roughly four months to reach the position Window 7 is at now.
But there’s a more interesting revelation when you examine the figures more closely. Windows 7 had shares of 5 percent and 5.14 percent on Saturday and Sunday respectively. However, it averaged 4.15 percent for the week as a whole.
By my calculations that means Windows 7 was used on average by 3.78 percent of people on weekdays and 5.07 percent of people at weekends.
Before analyzing that further, it’s only fair to acknowledge that such a difference could be affected by statistical error. It’s also perfectly possible it was simply a one-off freak occurrence.
However, if the figures are accurate, that pattern strongly suggests that Windows 7 is doing considerably better among consumers than businesses. If that’s simply down to the consumer marketing being a particular success, all well and good. But if it’s down to business sales underperforming, Microsoft may be more concerned.
There are, of course, good reasons why business sales might be weak other than the product itself disappointing. Upgrading is more of a commitment to a company – which may prefer to wait to upgrade an entire network at once rather than one machine at a time – than it is to a home user. And an October release is much more likely to drive consumer sales, particularly to people buying new computers as gifts, than business sales which are often subject to annual budgets which don’t reset until the spring.
With that said, this is certainly a point worth watching to see if it develops into a trend. If that’s the case, the poor business response to Vista may have had longer-lasting effects than had been realized.
Related Posts:
November 28th, 2009
I’d guess the businesses want to check it out for a while before bothering
November 28th, 2009
It would be plain embarrassing if windows 7 did not take more than 5% of the market. So no surprises there.
Considering that Macs are mainly consumer computers, the systems should really be compared in the same bases. Apple will have a lower usage during the week than during the weekend. So the comparison should be against the 4.15% of W7 during the week. Which is still below the 5% averaged that same week by Apple.
Very likely this will change quickly as W7 should increase market share faster than Macs.
The point you make about a larger use by W7 users during the weekend, is interesting. Clearly pointing to a lack of adoption by enterprise, or at least a slower adoption rate.
However, I predict the total windows market share to keep sliding down, about 2% points this year, and another 3% to 4% by the end of 2010. Apple will end this year with just under 6%, and picking up the 3 to 4% lost by MS by the end of 2010, having a worldwide share of 10% in line with the US. If apple wishes to increase market share beyond 10%, we will see an aggressive change of strategy towards the end of 2010. But perhaps they will just be comfortable with the high end of the market and not push it further.
November 29th, 2009
I don’t see any surprises here. Most of the adopters of W7, if not all, are upgraders from Vista. As Vista sells were very poor in the Enterprise markets, it is natural to see the percentage of users decline during the week days.
The Big challange for W7 will be after the reach of 20% (Vista’s market share). Then we will see if it can bite into XP’s 70% share.
November 29th, 2009
The big test for Microsoft will be to see how they cope with netbooks. Linux distributions are going to be the operating systems of choice for Netbooks soon, and netbooks are the current craze. Its got more to do with the fact that they’re cheap laptops than anything else, generally speaking, but if Google make it big with Chrome then Microsoft ought to be very wary. Intel is also on the prowl with its Moblin netbook operating system. When these big fish start dipping into the netbook market, it could provide the introduction to the market needed by Linux in order to make it big. Linux’s limitation is that it isn’t user friendly which isn’t good for the average consumer. If Google and Intel change this on netbooks, larger scale OSs will improve on Linux and Microsoft has a problem.
The stats aren’t surprising though, and competition will only make Microsoft keep its game up.
December 1st, 2009
Businesses never are early adopters, not of new OSes or major updates of same.
Microsoft took about a month to become the leader in Netbook OSes a year ago. And theoretically, Linux is much more user friendly if it comes preinstalled. It was crap Distros like GOS and other horrible iterations of Linux that made it happen.
There is still nothing like Apt or the other package managers used by various Linux distributions for brain dead ease of use. And the ability to place user data on a separate /home partition lets you install clean versions of different Linux , even from different families, and have a perfectly up to date OS with all the user data intact and ready to go in 10 minutes. Sticking with the Distro’s own collection of software or repositories means every other program and component is check for compliance and version number and is updated automatically.There’s nothing more “unfriendly” in clicking on a Firefox or Thunderbird icon from a Linux desktop, the GUI setup utilizing Xorg has made huge strides in the last few years. I can run the same kernel on a pimped out workstation or consumer electronic device, pretty powerful stuff.
There is nothing stopping a hardware vendor from doing an Apple and bolting on a useful and innovative Linux GUI over the cast iron stability of the underlining OS. A custom Linux from scratch is a rather minor undertaking and requires no licensing costs.
But I don’t think the Netbook market is going to do much for Linux. The best shot for a significant uptick in share for Linux is through it’s use as a corporate desktop.The abandoning of the Server Room and going Ubuntu crazy with all the Linux buzz to the desktop was a disaster. Instead of being the beneficiary of this period of economic downturn with CEOs and COOs snatching up the low hanging fruit in licensing costs and seat expense, not to mention the upgraded security, all that really happened was Microsoft taking down it’s FUD “Get the facts” website and they stopped threatening to sue businesses running Linux for IP infringement.
Microsoft was very worried about Linux a decade ago.They couldn’t use the embrace, extend and extinguish strategy that has decimated other IT rivals over the last 30 years. It used the same thing that left Microsoft alone among the tens of thousands of other companies that used proprietary measures and perished. Even Apple had to switch to commodity hardware to survive.
When the Penguinistas decided to push for desktop share and fight Apple for crumbs Microsoft filled in the holes in their Server Product line with SharePoint and Dynamics and other product.Not to mention the river of gold the MCSE fever generated for them. Jobs is an unequivocal marketing genus but even he couldn’t get tens of thousands to actually pay a fortune for the privilege of supporting their product including forcing them to re-qualify on new products.
I don’t think Microsoft is particularly about Apple. The business practice of secrecy and whipping up the faithful by judicious dribbles of possible new products is in direct conflict with a system built over decades from the necessity to keep legacy compatibility.