Windows Loses Ground in Market Share
Though it must hardly feel like they’re on the brink of destruction, Microsoft’s Windows operating system last month took its biggest loss in market share in the past two years, dropping down below 90% for the first time, as reported by Computer World. Meanwhile, Apple’s Mac OS X, arguably one of Windows’ chief “competitors,” realized its biggest gain in two years, growing its market share to 8.9%.
Vince Vizzaccarro, vice president of Net Applications, a web measuring and monitoring company, attributes the rise in Apple’s fortunes and the demise of Microsoft’s partly due to the fact that more and more home computer users are using non-Microsoft browsers to go online—applications like Safari and Firefox. Vizzaccarro points out that there were a higher number of weekend days in November, along with the traditional Thanksgiving holiday, which for many amounted to a four-day weekend. Windows’s share of online activity typically falls on weekends and after work hours.
Also reported was a dramatic drop in Windows XP’s share of the pie, and a significant uptick in Windows Vista’s. Windows 2000, the only other edition of Windows tracked by Net Applications, continued its descent to obscurity, now hovering at about 1.56% of the OS pie. Linux, the open-source OS, grew a tenth of a percentage point, but it has yet to crest the 1% mark.
By Robert Pothier
