Is windows market share slipping? | The Coffeehouse

PocketXP
More Cowbell

Survey Indicates Microsoft Windows' Market Hold Cracking

"report reveals that targeting of the Windows OS has declined by 12 percent from a year ago, continuing a two-year gradual decline."

http://www.tmcnet.com/news/2007/07/05/2762759.htm

anand.t

The author is a totally confused soul. My condolences to her family Tongue Out

She is trying to conclude something from the developer survey which found more developers are targetting Non-Win OS.

Ray6

anand.t wrote:
The author is a totally confused soul. My condolences to her family She is trying to conclude something from the developer survey which found more developers are targetting Non-Win OS.

Good grief, that really was quite bad.

She didn't even make an attempt to tie them together!

However there is a link between developer interest and size of user base. If one starts slipping, the other usually follows a few years later.

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

The most widely used scripting language is Javascript, with more than three times the users of PHP, Ruby or Python. Use of Ruby is expected to increase by 50 percent within the coming year.

Microsoft cannot possibly compete with OSes built in javascript, surely...

Rossj

I was tempted to contribute my thoughts, but it looks like everyone would rather slam the original article than maybe discuss the possibility. Does nobody want to discuss whether they believe it might even be possible?

So I'll join the in crowd, that article sucks/can't be accurate/was badly written/is just after clicks *^{_{delete as applicable}}

andy_hanger18

This is along the lines of the "Microsoft has nowhere to hide" thread really.

Companies world wide have invested billions of pounds/dollars/euro's etc in Windows OS's, applications and training. Children are used to the Windows environment from school so it would make more sense them using it in adulthood.

Its obvious. Microsoft will be around for years to come. They will continue to develop Windows and people/businesses will continue to buy it, or it'll come preloaded on new PC's they buy. There will be no sudden takeover by free OS's leaving Microsoft to disappear overnight.

Of course, they'll still be new fairy stories written about Microsoft's demise every month for years to come, but we've come to expect that.

AndyC

Rossj wrote:
Does nobody want to discuss whether they believe it might even be possible?

I would, but I'm struggling to identify what the argument is exactly.

e.g.

"The most widely used scripting language is Javascript, with more than three times the users of PHP, Ruby or Python. Use of Ruby is expected to increase by 50 percent within the coming year."

How exactly does the use of a client side scripting language (one which, lets face it is the only real option) relate to the usage of back end server side scripting languages? What exactly is that supposed to be telling me? It reaks of someone who doesn't understand what they are writing about.

As to the overall premise that Windows development has decreased, I'd say that's highly likely. There is much more web based applications now than there were a few years back. That doesn't really affect Microsoft's grip on the desktop for as long as people are still buying Windows PCs to browse the web. Nor does it necessarily decrease the number of Windows Servers out there.

Ray6

Rossj wrote:
I was tempted to contribute my thoughts, but it looks like everyone would rather slam the original article than maybe discuss the possibility. Does nobody want to discuss whether they believe it might even be possible?

So I'll join the in crowd, that article sucks/can't be accurate/was badly written/is just after clicks *^{_{delete as applicable}}

Well I think I've already covered that with 'there is a link between developer interest and user base'; more apps often means more users, which is why I am concerned about the number of new developments on the Windows platform.

On the other hand, a look at June's MarketLink figures shows that I could be way off base.

Vista is now the second most widely used operating system on the internet, after Windows XP.

Now a quick (and rough) comparsion from last month's figures seems to show that even taking into account the drop in share for XP, 2000 and Windows98, the overall desktop Windows share actually increased very slightly.

So I could be wrong, though I still think a loss of developers is a cause for concern.

Rossj

Ray6 wrote:

Vista is now the second most widely used operating system on the internet, after Windows XP.

Why is Mac in there twice?

[/quote]

fdisk

That site wrote:
This report lists the market share of the top operating systems in use. This data is derived by aggregating the traffic across our network of websites that use our service.

That means this particular "sample" is really sort of relative.

Not being a fan of the IE7 interface, I also found this to be interesting...

IE Marketshare Slipping

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

Rossj wrote:

Why is Mac in there twice?

Probably for the same reason that Windows is there three times: they've split by 'flavour'.

At least they remembered to put the actual figures there in the legend so we can combine them ourselves, so it's not a total sin.

Herbie

Detroit Muscle
Wii!

Ray6 wrote:
Vista is now the second most widely used operating system on the ~~internet~~ Web, after Windows XP.

Fixed that for you.

Ray6

Detroit Muscle wrote:

Ray6 wrote:Vista is now the second most widely used operating system on the ~~internet~~ Web, after Windows XP.

Fixed that for you.

Thanks.

Ray6

Rossj wrote:

Why is Mac in there twice?

I'm guessing they split between Intel Macs and PPC macs.

Rossj

Ray6 wrote:

Rossj wrote:
Why is Mac in there twice?

I'm guessing they split between Intel Macs and PPC macs.

And Safari at 4.5%, hmm. That means that very few people use Firefox on OSX doesn't it? I doubt any (much) of that Safari share is from the Windows version.

Ray6

fdisk wrote:

That site wrote:This report lists the market share of the top operating systems in use. This data is derived by aggregating the traffic across our network of websites that use our service.
That means this particular "sample" is really sort of relative.

... their sample counts for around 40,000 URLs so I have no problem with the size. The demographic is a different matter.

Still, from what I've seen personally of the take up of Vista, then I wouldnt be surprised if it is running second behind XP.

fdisk wrote:

Not being a fan of the IE7 interface, I also found this to be interesting...

IE Marketshare Slipping

Jan - 79.75%
Feb - 79.09%
March - 78.57%
April - 78.03%
May - 78.67%
June - 78.84%

Mmm .. not sure if this shows a downward trend to be honest. Could be showing signs of recovery due to the increase in Vista around the net (sorry ... web). I'd probably give it two or three months to see if they can sustain the growth.

Ray6

Rossj wrote:

Ray6 wrote:
Rossj wrote:
Why is Mac in there twice?

I'm guessing they split between Intel Macs and PPC macs.

And Safari at 4.5%, hmm. That means that very few people use Firefox on OSX doesn't it? I doubt any (much) of that Safari share is from the Windows version.

Makes sense, since they don't seem to split between Safari running on Intel and Safari running on PPC. The combined share for MacOS is about 6%, the majority of whom seem to be running Safari

anand.t

fdisk wrote:

That site wrote: This report lists the market share of the top operating systems in use. This data is derived by aggregating the traffic across our network of websites that use our service.
That means this particular "sample" is really sort of relative.

Not being a fan of the IE7 interface, I also found this to be interesting...

IE Marketshare Slipping

I find it interesting that compared to May, IE's share has infact risen in june, while firefox and safari have taken a dip . Now let me write a blog on why linux and mac are coming to an end Tongue Out