Windows 7 growing faster than Vista, overtakes all versions of Mac OS X
Windows 7 has been on general sale for three months now, and that first quarter of its life has been a particularly strong one. Not only is it growing in popularity much faster than Vista did over the same time period, it has also now overtaken Mac OS X. That’s right, more people now use Windows 7 than use any version of Mac OS X.
It’s old news to even talk about Vista’s failed launch and lack of sales. But it’s important to remember what happened with Vista to really show how positive a reception Windows 7 has got from the public.
Ars Technica has a detailed look at the state of the operating system market shares as we begin 2010. Windows market share actually dipped a little in December, dropping from 92.52 percent to 92.21 percent. But Windows 7 had an unequivocally great holiday season.
After a month on sale, Windows 7 already had a four percent market share, while Vista could only manage 0.93 percent after the same amount of time. After two months, Vista had rallied slightly to 2.04 percent, but Windows 7 hit 5.71 percent. That means Windows 7 has managed in just two months the market share it took Vista six months to build.
Overall, Windows XP is still the daddy, with 67.77 percent of the Windows OS market share. Vista is second on 17.87, while Windows 7 is on 5.71 percent. However, at the rate Windows 7 is growing, it may only take a year for the newest OS to overtake Vista. Whether this will be at the expense of Vista, with people upgrading, or at the expense of XP, with people buying new systems, remains to be seen.
Windows 7′s 5.71 percent overall market share means it has now overtaken Mac OS X, all versions of which only account for 5.11 percent of the overall OS market share. Apple fanboys will surely argue that this isn’t news or that it was always bound to happen, but after just two months? Surely that has to rankle just a little bit.
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