Vista Use Grows as Mac OS X Stays Flat 387
jdelator writes to mention ComputerWorld is reporting that Microsoft's Windows Vista has increased their market share steadily every month while their main opponent, Mac OS X, has remained essentially flat. "According to Net Applications, in June Windows Vista accounted for 4.52% of all systems that browsed the Web, up from January's 0.18%. Vista has grown its usage share each month since its release to consumers Jan. 30, hitting 0.93% in February, 2.04% in March, 3.02% in April and 3.74% in May. Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, meanwhile, accounted for 6.22% in January and hit its high point of 6.46% in May, but it slipped back to 6% in June. If Vista's uptake trend continues, it should pass Mac OS X in Web usage share by the end of August."
Wow, what news, MS outsells Apple! (Score:3, Insightful)
Very silly statistic! (Score:5, Insightful)
What a silly comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
OSX has been around for a long while now, so it is hard to expect sudden changes.
What would make far more sense would be to compare Vista + XP vs OSX. That would give a far better MS vs OSX comparison.
Misleading sensationalism, as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
There is, really, nothing to see here. Yawn.
forced purchases? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this even news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee I wonder why (Score:2, Insightful)
Meaningless (Score:1, Insightful)
If Vista's uptake trend continues... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious to see how the release of Leopard will change these numbers, I know I'm waiting to buy a mac (replacing my PC, I already have an ibook, not that you care.) until after Leopard.
Isn't this a bit of a stupid comparison? (Score:2, Insightful)
I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
To further skew the results, some users are upgrading from Windows XP, there isn't a new version of OS X out yet, so why would people be upgrading to it? It just doesn't make any sense. MS isn't gaining any new users here, while Linux and Mac obviously are. Whats with the BS?
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, "percent of web pages browsed" sucks balls as a statistic, since it only covers select websites, doesn't take into account some blocking and privacy techniques, ignores user-agent spoofing, and assumes everyone browses the web at the same rate of pages/machine/day. Now some of that (not a lot of UA spoofing really, and web-browsing rates are probably similar) is not a huge deal, but some of it (which web pages are covered) really is.
Re:Very silly statistic! (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, the absolute market share figures are still interesting. With Apple selling 15% of new laptops this year, it is slightly surprising that they only have a 6-7% market share.
Duh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What a silly comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft need not worry about OS X, they need to worry about Windows ME all over again. Maybe users don't like DRM, spyware, and inequitable licensing terms after all, but I suspect Microsoft will end up blaming multiple versions confusing their ignorant customers.
Re:Bad study: systems identifying themselves as vi (Score:3, Insightful)
Your assumption is that a significant number of people change the headers sent by thier browser of choice. Somehow, I seriously doubt that those people are significate in this study.
I'm sure this has already been said... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Vista Numbers Suggest Poor Adoption (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but I'm not shy about telling people that waiting until Vista SP1 has been tried and tested is a prudent move.
Re:FP? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:forced purchases? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't see the problem of paying $5000 for a desktop from someone you've never really heard of before then you're way out of touch with the common man.
At least the $2000+ Apple desktops benefit from the long track record (for better or worse) that Apple has in consumer computing.
Sun might as well be LG. Actually, LG would at least be a name people might recognize.
Re:forced purchases? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:forced? more like encouraged (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, you are 100% correct that it's EASY to buy a XP loaded Dell. XP is a standard option.
The same is NOT the case at the local Bad Buy, Officemax, etc. where the only option is Vista, preloaded on all machines.
who knew? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vista Numbers Suggest Poor Adoption (Score:2, Insightful)
Big OEMs were outright refusing to include OEM XP with their systems. Then they caved. But even if you get no OS, you still have to pay for Vista. (None-installed is not the same as not paying for it.) You have no choice with the low-end machines, for example -- It's Vista Basic or build your own machine. Microsoft is killing XP support, and every volume license sold is Vista, you just have to register the license and use your downgrade rights.
Figures promoted by Microsoft are not trustworthy, and they're insulated from the actual market. Eventually it will take over, because there are no other choices allowed in the OEM market.
It's also worth noting (Score:3, Insightful)
Finally, starting this month through December, Apple is rolling out new mini-apple stores inside of 1/3 of the US's Best Buy stores(over 300 stores in total), which is dramatically going to increase their market exposure. Anyway, I agree, it's silly to compare the two because at no time in the near to foreseeable future is Apple going to post higher marketshare numbers than Windows. That said, I'd expect between this august and the first part of next year to see a steady, if not dramatic, increase in Mac marketshare.
Re:And Windows users buy PCs more often (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is that I don't see how a Mac laptop inherently has three more years of life. From what I hear anecdotally the internal hardware is pretty much the same these days. As far as the software goes, my laptop will run Vista adequately if not well, and you could say the same of a three-year-old Apple laptop and Leopard.
In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sheesh. This is "news" now?
Also, the methodology used for this statistic is telling: "web visitors." The user's OS is becoming so inconsequential that it is measured in terms of people using said operating systems merely to access cross-platform, web-based applications.
Re:Nothing to see here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
No doubt. It's a given that Vista's use will increase, duh. And when the summery says this:
"[OS X] hit its high point of 6.46% in May, but it slipped back to 6% in June."
What are they implying? That OSX users suddenly abandoned their Macs and switched to Vista or other?
Math challenged FA (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole thing is based on brain damage anyway. Growth isn't measurable by percentage of systems in a dynamic market.
For instance, in a given month say there were 100x systems in use, 75x of which ran windows, and 25x of which ran OSX. Next month, there were 200x systems in use, 150x of which run windows, and 50x of which ran OSX. In both cases, using the article's flawed reasoning, windows is 75% and OSX is 25% so there is no growth for either platform; but the fact is that both systems grew 100%, as there are twice as many of both types of systems in use by month two. Both manufacturers and their investors, etc., would have every reason to celebrate.
That's why using percentages of market is a bankrupt strategy to measure product growth in a dynamic market (which PC's certainly are), and always will be. The question is, are there more systems using the product in question now, than there were the last time one looked? If there is, then the product is growing. If not, it isn't. Doesn't have squat to do with shared percentage as measured against another product.
Re:Very silly statistic! (Score:4, Insightful)
I run windows from time to time... but I run it in a sandbox on my Mac. Linux too. So every time someone counts my windows or my linux, it's really counting a Mac anyway. :-)
Re:Vista Numbers Suggest Poor Adoption (Score:2, Insightful)
Your posts interests me for some reason. Perhaps it's the blatant use of trolledness.
What draconian DRM are you referring to? I place a CD in my Vista box and it plays just fine, I can rip it to whatever format I like with nothing in my way. Now if I bought a CD with DRM on it then Vista will honor it. This makes sense to me given that consumers that don't care about DRM would then be allowed to do what they want and those of us that do care will choose not to buy DRM media. The added crap only runs if you're using DRM media so there's no problems if you're not.
Activation is indeed a problem although it's interesting that you explicitly state corp editions when it's a complete non-issue for corp editions and is only a problem for home users. For corp uses you have a central authorization server which you probably already have in the form of SMS. That's a complete non-issue a corp edition of Vista are not tied to the machines which is the whole reason business buy those licenses instead of retail.
Spyware, finally, something that at least has a hint of reality although easily filtered through an ISA server or most any proxy. If the proxy is transparent then the end-user won't even notice. A bad move and in my mind a sound reason for disliking Vista. That is definitely something MS should not have added to the OS.
I'm not sure what other cruft you're referring to or what you're particular problems are with the EULA. You are unlikely to want to virtualize the home versions or any of the light versions of Vista since the majority of Vista users out there are using more expensive premium versions. It's a stupid caveat for MS to have added and only serves to cut out the cheapskates from becoming customers but perhaps MS doesn't want cheapskate customers anymore perhaps because a lot of them are moving to Linux already.
Lastly, depending on the size and nature of the business just because users are happy with an OS doesn't mean that a newer OS won't give you the administrator a better ability to give users a unified desktop keeping users familiar with their surroundings and making it easier to deploy en masse. Plus there are other advanced shadow copy services which integrate with DPM natively to allow for versioning on your file server of whatever documents you wish whether they be ODF or xlsx.
Now of course not everyone needs to upgrades and most of course not everyone benefits from it. You however don't seem to be well educated in what Vista offers business users. Of course you might have perhaps just wanted a short post with a few quick jabs here and there. There are lots of reasons to dislike Vista just like lots of reasons to dislike any OS. You might want to pick things that are actually problems though. Memory management, footprint, processing power, broken legacy applications. Those are real reasons to dislike Vista. Of course per-user computer settings in group policy is mighty nice along with an image based install making hardware independent install images a snap are two reasons off the top of my head to like it. Of course there is also the improved shadow copy services, advanced auditing abilities, ease of compliance certification, complete administrative control over the desktop environment are just a few others.
I won't be deploying Vista anytime soon largely because of the hardware requirements. During the next lease refresh I'll surely consider it though weighing the good and bad for the company I work for and deciding accordingly. That probably won't be until next year though.
Re:Nothing to see here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
This sort of story should not be on slashdot, even as a 'look how stupid they are' type thing.
Re:Nothing to see here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a better comparison for you - MS hasn't entered a new market sector profitably in YEARS, Apple has done so repeatedly.
Re:Vista Numbers Suggest Poor Adoption (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't want to need anyone's "permission" to use software I bought. PERIOD.
And yes, it's more a matter of principle than any inconvenience suffered.
Re:Nothing to see here.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's just me. If HP, Asus or anyone sold OSX machines (for the usual price of equivalent Mac minus 50%) they'd be selling so many OSX licenses that it would more than make up for the loss of Mac sales. Apple does not sell enough macs that it would cut that much in their revenue streams
If Steve Jobs wanted to, he could choke Microsoft in a year. The technology is here just now
Re:For the sake of nitpicking (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nothing to see here.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if it would run games...