Usage share numbers: Microsoft’s browsers down in March, but Win10 up

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Gregg Keizer on the browser wars: An uptick for Microsoft’s Edge browser wasn’t enough to offset Internet Explorer’s slide in March. Chrome, meanwhile
[See the full post at: Usage share numbers: Microsoft’s browsers down in March, but Win10 up]

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GreatAndPowerfulTech, Elly, Lugh, PhotM

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“…in March, Windows ran 87.5% of the world’s machines. All but a tiny fraction of the rest ran macOS, Linux or Chrome OS.)”

In March Linux/Unix/Android/iOS ran on 91% of the world’s devices with Windows less the 9%.

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That is an interesting way to reshuffle the categories and arrive at a new number. Restating the result in this way does look different. Would you please cite the source of the conclusion you offer? Or, sources of raw numbers to allow us to check the math?

Remember children’s toys and IoT devices are not the same as business purpose embedded units like point of sale units. All these are different than cellular smart phones and limited use tablets and their bluetooth accessories. Still these items mentioned so far are very different than servers, which itself covers the range of hobbyist use, small business and schools, major academia and global corporations, including their cloud servers. But none of these categories include the simple workstation box or laptop that most people think of when reading these statistics.

So, are we limiting analysis to end user workstations that access the internet; or everything with a microprocessor, no matter their physical size or intended purpose? Without the citation I ask for, I am not able to frame your recast statement.

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Everything with a microprocessor which is running an OS, including 100% of the routers which are running Linux, Home Cinema receivers, Smart TVs..

About a 2 years ago Microsoft has stated in a conversion that Windows has ~14% OS market share, since than its market share dropped vs other devices running OS.

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Including cellphones with computer sales, is about as silly as including bicycles with automotive sales.

People don’t cross-shop Shimano and Volvo.
People don’t cross-shop ThinkStation and Galaxy Note.

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Lugh, OscarCP

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From the Computerworld article cited in the blog: ” Elsewhere in Net Applications’ March data, the overall user share of Windows climbed less than one-tenth of a percentage point to 87.5%. MacOS and OS X rose, too, by two-tenths of a point, to 9.9%. Linux’s user share stabilized at 2.1% while Google’s Chrome OS edged up slightly to 0.4%. ”

This is about one (or is it two?) billion real human beings making difficult decisions with multiple choices– and still plenty of time to figure out what they are going to do. I salute the writer for such a courageous attempt at predicting the unpredictable (Win 7 percent share undoubtedly will go down and Win 10 up… by how much, within a meaningful range of uncertainty, though?) According to the same article, the shares of all Windows operating systems should be, for Win 7, 35% by next February, for Win 10, 59% )… But better let’s just wait and see. In particular, what happens to the Mac and Linux percentages.

My wild guess: given the well-known user-friendliness of Macs and the established presence of more user-friendly Linux distros (and more people that know about them and can help others to start using them), such as Ubuntu and its forks (and the forks of its forks), the personal computing landscape has changed considerably over the past decade and now those people considering whether to try an alternative to Windows will find it not harder, but even considerably easier to do than when Win 98 went out and XP came in, or XP went out and, first Vista and the Win 7, came in. So I suspect that now those Mac and Linux percentages may move up by more than a little bit above those in the quote above.

I have already helped with that by installing Linux in double boot with Win 7 in my old PC, and have also a late 2015 MacBook Pro. Others might help increase the numbers for those two OS in a similar way, and soon.

Group B Win 7 + M&L

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I suspect that most of those users able and willing to consider switching from Windows to another OS will have already done so. I’m not surprised therefore to see Linux’s user share stabilised. Outside technical sites like this one few people will even have heard of Linux, and I don’t see that changing dramatically as a result of the EOL date for Windows 7.

In any event, the figures for Windows 7 and Windows 10 fluctuate from month to month along with the predictions which flow from them! They’re a bit of fun, but not much more than that really.

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Migration away for Windows will probably occur for many reasons but it will not necessarily all that fast. Many will keep a computer for many years with the original (updated) OS. They will not change to another OS typically unless they are buying a new computer. What I see in retailers is Windows, Chromebooks, and sometimes Macs with roughly equal space given to each. Knowing retailers did not give display space to poor selling products that tells me that retailers are see good sales of Chromebooks and Macs to the public. This indicates there is a shift going on but it is not being noticed yet (or the methodology of measuring OS share is bonkers).

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On switching to Linux: I suspect that, with more people using some of the more friendly distros (Ubuntu, Mint, etc.), also more people will know someone that will both know how, and be willing (maybe for a small price) to help them install it in dual boot, as I have done, with help from a friend for free (but I have bought him a present). Most likely that will be done in their Win 7 PCs, unless these are very short of disk space. People with machines less than six or seven years old probably will have, or find easy to make, enough space in their disks. Then they could use the Linux side to do things on the Web, and the Window side to do whatever else they are doing there already.

That might not be OK for those who do things mostly online, such as playing games. But that might be an incentive for developers to, for example, adapt or create some really interesting games for Linux. In other words: in coming months we might find ourselves at a cusp: things could be much the same from then on, with Windows 10 taking, as in the past its previous versions have, the vast majority of the home and small business PC market, or changes might come that snowball — away from Windows. That ball of snow may start small and run slowly at first, but give it time…

Group B Win 7 [Pro, Sp1, x64] + M&L (Mac and Linux Mint)

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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People have been migrating away from Windows for 20+ years.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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There are 20+ years of difference between how things were then, how they are now, or how they would be a year from now. So: who knows? Win 10 is a big change. There might be other, as big or even bigger ones coming to keep it company.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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warrenrumak wrote:

migrating away from Windows for 20+ years

27 years since Linux launch, 31 years OS/2, 42 years Apple OSs…

It’s most unlikely to be any of the above which will make inroads, considering they were unable to do so during the Vista & Win 8 PR messes.

I expect it is Microsoft which will increase the share of other OSs in the market, as they continue to swing away from current Windows as a major revenue source.

IBM made the mistake of thinking the money was in hardware in the 80s. MS would probably only have Apple’s share if they’d made the same mistake, or relied too much on OS. They didn’t, to the extent that Windows is only 1/6th of revenue now.

I expect by the 30s, relatively few people will know about Windows as it’ll be the underlying platform on which many of MS’s future revenue generators depend. A bit like Cisco or a larger Akamai.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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