Vista grows share; Data suggests businesses stick with XP

Microsoft's Vista operating system is finally surpassing the 30 percent market share mark, according to an analysis by StatCounter, which monitors Web traffic.

The firm says the consistent presence over the 30 percent mark suggests that the operating system is finally starting to gain some traction - well, at least among consumers. Macs, of course, are more expensive that Windows PCs and, in most retail outlets, Vista is really the only other option for the mainstream crowd. (I know, I know... Linux. But we're talking mainstream, not techies.)

In the past, the traffic monitoring firm - which bases it data on the monitoring of four billion pageloads per month - has seen Vista usage cross the 30 percent mark, but not consistently. (click on image to enlarge)

The monitoring shows that usage of Vista peaks on the weekends while the use of machines with Windows XP peaks during the work week, a trend that suggests that businesses have been slower to adopt Vista.

Windows XP still leads the market with 56.6 percent market share. Mac OS X has about 8.3 percent of the share.