Windows 7 Performing Just Fine, Despite Haters
Apparently, some media outlets are so eager to see Microsoft fall flat on its face that they're already calling Windows 7 a failure -- less than two weeks after its debut. Electronista and CNN Money have already declared that, with Windows 7, Microsoft has blown its chance to stop the rise of Mac.According to Internet tracking firm Net Applications, Windows has seen its ninth drop in market share in the last twelve months, falling an astounding (cue eye-rolling) two-tenths of a percent in October. During the same time, OS X saw its market share climb a little over one-tenth of a percent. This is, apparently, indicative of a march towards computing dominance for Apple -- at least if you ignore the fact that, despite losing market share for nine of the last twelve months, and despite the disaster that was Vista, Microsoft operating systems still account for more than 92-percent of Internet traffic.
Look, Apple has been "on the rise" for about ten years now and only accounts for about five-percent of the PCs currently in use. We're not saying that Apple will never topple, or severely cut, into Microsoft's market share. We're just saying that claims of the surging Mac don't quite jibe with the reality of the market.
The editorial angle taken by the outlets singled out above is that, in the nine days following its release, Windows 7 failed to put an end to the climbing market share of Mac computers. Apparently, nine days should be enough to reverse the previous three weeks of commerce, and every Microsoft user was expected to jump right on in and upgrade their PCs immediately. But that's not the way the Microsoft experience works. Most consumers will wait and purchase a new PC rather than upgrade an existing one. Additionally, much of Microsoft's customer base is businesses who must extensively test an OS before upgrading. Don't expect to see huge surges for Windows 7 until the first service pack is out.
When you look closer though, the numbers actually look pretty good for Windows 7. According to Net Applications' numbers, on launch day Windows 7 accounted for less than two percent of all Internet traffic. In the ensuing nine days that number climbed above three percent and is now approaching four. Microsoft told Computer World that it's too early to know what sales figures will look like, but so far the company is happy with reaction to the new OS.
That's not to say that Windows 7 is an unmitigated success, or that October's numbers represent an anomaly. It's just far too early to pass judgment. Windows 7 could slow or reverse Apple's growth, or it could open the flood gates, essentially giving Macs 10-percent of the market by the end of 2010. More likely, though, it won't change much of anything. Apple's market share will continue to fluctuate, and perhaps increase in measurable, but largely insignificant amounts, as the months pass. A thorn in the side of Microsoft, Apple is formidable in the battle for mind-share and public perception, but when it comes to cold hard numbers, Apple will remain small potatoes. [From: electronista, CNN Money, Computer World, and OS News]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
MIKE said 5:34PM on 11-04-2009
vista was a huge disaster, im not going to upgrade to win 7 until this vista machine kicks the bucket or i take a baseball bat to it. will win7 allow users to play their old xp games, and software, one of the main bitches about vista besides its crashes and 5 million other problems, was the inability to play xp games that were purchased for years and years
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mohammed said 6:20PM on 11-04-2009
Another apple fanboy. Vista was good. I had no issues. All issues with vista were related to drivers and not software. People should really give ms a chance to shine.
Pacey said 6:26PM on 11-04-2009
Hey Mike,
I'm running a Win7 machine that got installed over XP the weekend after launch. I had made the decision to skip Vista because the only thing it provided was DirectX 10, and that wasn't enough of a reason for me to switch when Vista was released. My hardware at the time wasn't spectacular and I'd been running XP since I switched off ME on XP's launch day.
Anyways, I bought new hardware but decided that I was just going to stick with XP cuz of rumors that Win7 was on its way. I wanted to get onto 64-Bit and I knew that drivers were out that would work for everything i had.
Did the upgrade, couple hours to install. Couple more hours to get all my data off my backups and onto the computer. I have all the same software i was running on my XP rig under Win7 with no issues so far. Some of these programs are well over 6-8 years old. No one thing i have tried to install on Win7 has not worked. It's also been very stable and comes out of sleep mode faster.
I seriously haven't run into a problem since the upgrade.
Ramujyan said 9:55PM on 11-04-2009
Yeah, the Vista launch sucked. And Microsoft only recently addressed it's memory issues with SP2. The annoying and useless UAC system still pops-up at the most inconvenient of times.
I had way above the recommended specs, that's for sure, and Vista would still BSOD and crash to desktop on certain Directx apps ALL THE TIME!
However, it seems that Windows 7 has changed all that. I installed and booted up Windows 7 x64 RC about 6 months ago and haven't looked back. Trust me, this is worth upgrading to. I've upgraded all of my systems to Windows 7, except one, and that's because it barely fulfills XP SP3's requirements as is.
JerryTBO said 1:26AM on 11-16-2009
are you using the windows 7 right now ,It seems very well right now.
Ed said 9:20AM on 11-12-2009
I don't understand. I have 3 Macs (G4 desktop, Laptop, and an Intel) I have two PCs-a desktop AMD and a laptop. There is no contest about most software issues.
I've never had to reinstall my Mac OS. I reinstall my PC software about every 6 months. In nearly all cases, it is the OS incompatibility or inefficiencies and just plain sloppy patches.
I like both machines. There are applications unique to both machines.
My complaint goes to both Apple and Microsoft. They make the customer the beta
tester and then require them to pay for a faulty system. Most revisions to the OS are not worth the price of new OS software. Upgrades are just not worth the cost.
If reliablity were the issue - give me a Mac. But if I'm going to bring my work home
it would likely be a PC. This is why I have both. Companies are heavily committed
to PCs.
It is too bad that Linux has so little too offer in application software. Mac's version
of Linux seems quite limited, but to be fair I haven't done anything except play
with it.
I love SGI machines, but alas, like a Rolls, it is beyond my means. But this is really
about MACs and PCs
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Billium1953 said 4:48PM on 11-29-2009
I've been using Windows 7 for about three weeks now. In a nutshell think of the worst Vista experience you've had and make it worse and you have Windows 7. I have a new laptop with Windows 7 Premium 64 bit and it constantly locks up. I've had to pull the battery out of the system to get it to quite. I have a friend that just "upgraded" to Windows 7 from Vista and he actually longs for the days of Vista. All these professional reviewers who are claiming it is better must be on the MS payroll. If there were to be an honest tag line for Windows 7 it would be "Windows 7 - Vista made slower and more useless. " I will never ever purchase another Microsoft operating system. Do yourself a huge favor and do not make the same mistake I did.
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