14 DAY TRIAL // Windows was, is, and according to some new statistics, will continue to be the world’s number one operating system on PCs for a long time from now on, as neither Mac OS X nor Linux is close enough to become a threat for Microsoft’s platform.
Net Applications claims that Windows is currently running on 90.42 percent of the world’s computers, followed by Mac OS X with 8 percent and Linux with 1.57 percent.
The 90 percent market share has become a milestone for Windows, with many people claiming that dropping below this score would represent the beginning of a more dramatic decline, even though the difference between Microsoft’s operating system and its rivals is clearly huge.
As far as Windows’ performance, in particular, is concerned, there’s indeed a small decline these days, but nothing that could be a sign of a bigger decline. At least, not yet.
Windows continuously lost market share since February this year when it had a market share of 91.57 percent. It dropped to 91.22 percent the next month and then gradually lost users until it eventually reached 90.65 percent in July. The arrival of Windows 10 bumped its share to 90.84 percent before a new drop to 90.54 percent occurred.
The Windows hate
Analysts, experts, and users alike predicted the decline of Windows back in 2012 when Microsoft launched Windows 8, which was generally referred to as the second Windows Vista. With Windows 8 failing to make a difference, everyone expected Microsoft’s platform to go down, as more people were interested in alternatives such as Linux and OS X.
The same happened earlier this year when Windows 10 came out and everyone criticized Microsoft for the way it collected information from users’ computers. The privacy scandal that impacted Windows 10 was said to be the first step towards a bigger demise of Windows, but that’s clearly not going to happen any time soon given these market share numbers.
Right now, there are more than 110 million users on Windows 10 and figures are very likely to grow in the coming months, so it’s hard to believe that Windows can drop below the 90 percent threshold in the next 12 months.