Windows 7 finally beats XP, or does it?
Summary: It took its time, but Windows 7 now appears to be more widely used than XP.
It took Windows 7 a little more than two years, but according to StatCounter, the Website analytics company, Windows 7 is now being used by more people than its decade old brother XP.
According to StatCounter's research arm StatCounter Global Stats in October 2011 Windows 7 took 40.5% of global Web market share with XP at 38.5%. Windows Vista, which was meant to replace XP and failed miserably, is down at 11.2% globally.
"Vista was like the ugly sister that few wanted to dance with," said Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter's CEO, in a statement. "Despite Microsoft trying to keep it back in the kitchen, XP has retained tremendous loyalty over the last decade. However, it looks like the younger Windows 7 is now emerging in the Cinderella role."
According to the StatCounter analysis Windows 7 overtook XP in the United States in April 2011 and in Europe in July. However, in Asia Windows XP still retains a clear lead at 55% in October compared to 36% for Windows 7.
Not everyone agrees though that XP is now in second place. NetMarketShare, another Web traffic analysis company, has XP still hanging on to first place with 48.03% of the market and Windows 7 still catching up with only 34.62%. If the delta remains the same Windows 7 won't catch up with XP on NetMarketShare's view until early 2012.
StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample of over 15 billion page views per month (4 billion in the US) from their network of more than three million websites. NetMarketShare data collection network has over 40,000 websites, and counts unique visitors once for visit for day. In summary, NetMarketShare's data is compiled from approximately 160 million unique visits per month.
What that means is that StatCounter counts all page views while NetMarketShare looks at single site visits. That in turn imples that very active users of a particular operating system would weigh more heavily on StatCounter's numbers.
Be that as it may, there can be no question that Windows 7, if not the most desktop operating system in the world today, is well on its way to that achieving that position. As for the rest, Mac OS X, according to StatCounter, has broken the 7% mark, 7.18%, and NetMarketShare shows Mac OS X at 5.45%. Linux on desktops still lags far, far behind the others.
Related Stories:
StatCounter: Windows 7 overtakes XP
Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share
The Linux desktop is dead. Long live the Linux desktop.
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Talkback
Corollaries
It also shows the critics were wrong
That's what gave MS their $.
RE: Windows 7 finally beats XP, or does it?
True. SP2 fixed XP.
i agree regard i found xp is bettr then vista and think to be better than w
RE: Windows 7 finally beats XP, or does it?
If 7.6% is a take away, I'm sure Microsoft will donnate that gladly. Cheers!
not yet xp is still a leader.
Right. You always have the spin, johnfenjack$on
(The $ is a dead giveaway) ]:)
Well considering your '$pin'
RE: Windows 7 finally beats XP, or does it?
Windows 8 look like the next Vista
<br>@johnfenjackson@...
W-7 oversells XP? **NO, WHAY**
.
It's not a true count UNLESS you ask the buyers which OS they prefer. Otherwise almost all new PC's will come with W-7 installed. A forced sale is NOT a true count by any means.
.
ASK THE CUSTOMER which OS they prefer to buy with there new PC and you will get the true count.
--90% of our PCs still run XP
But that's going to change soon as I replace them with:
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops iGel Thin Clients. The iGel SPICE solid state Thin Clients boot their kernel to Linux but the Desktop sessions will be into Windows 7 in the Datacenter running RHEV-h hypervisor memory space.
Each of those Windows 7 sessions will sit in its own SELinux sandbox.
Nice
"Each of those Windows 7 sessions will sit in its own SELinux sandbox.
I'm running one of my virtualized, desktop Linux systems sandboxed in Windows Vista. One can't be too careful with Linux.
Well customers certainly dont want Desktop Linux
It's not a forced sale. Buy a Mac, or buy a used machine.
By your logic, dont count my Android phone cause I was forced into buying it!
RE: Windows 7 finally beats XP, or does it?
They could have went to a number of OEM and got one with Linux, but they did not. They bought the one on the self with windows installed. Call it what you want!!
Right. And no one buys a new PC as they want Windows 7, too
Why is it the anti-MS people always throw out that same tired, old argument like it was factual?
So a person that wants Windows 7 would never consider getting a new computer at the same time? they all say they want a new computer and will be happy to have what every they are forced to use?
So that explains why Linux was such a raging success on the desktop?
Please retire that myth about "people only use Windows because it's forced on them".
It's such a lame excuse, can't belive people still use it.
Everyone I ask prefer Windows 7 ove XP.
That reasoning has been proven to be so much FUD
They are purchasing Windows machines, not Linux, not Apple, but WINDOWS machines.
They have a choice of anyone of them, yet still manage to somehow end up with Windows machines? Could it be that the sales people are [b]forcing[/b] it on users?
I don't think so. The more practical (and accurate) explanation would be that people are seeking out Windows. Apparently they [b]want[/b] Windows on their system.
So it would be rather obvious that Windows 7 is a catalyst into purchasing a new machine as they can have the latest hardware [b]and[/b] the latest OS.
The proof is all there.
So you assumption that people just buy a machine with no thought to the OS has just been "blown out of the water".
RE: Windows 7 finally beats XP, or does it?
RE: Windows 7 finally beats XP, or does it?