Report: Global Battle Against XP Ahead for Windows 8
Windows 8 will have an even harder time dragging stubborn users away from Windows XP.
Independent web analytics company StatCounter reports that Windows 8 has a huge battle ahead on a global scale, and it's not just with Google's mobile OS, Android. Windows XP, which launched over 10 years ago in October 2001, will be one of its biggest contenders, as the popular OS still controls a nearly 30-percent usage share worldwide.
According to the report, Windows 7 held a worldwide 52.2-percent usage share in September whereas Windows XP controlled 27.64-percent. Here in the States, Windows 7 had a usage share of 49.36-percent compared to 16.42-percent for Windows XP.
What's more, Windows Vista is newer than XP, but its share usage was even lower with 7.58-percent of the global market and 11.67-percent in the United States. Over in the UK, Windows 7 had a 51.75-percent share while Windows XP fell in second with a 15.57-percent share. Windows Vista trailed in third place with a 12.95-percent share.
On Thursday Aodhan Cullen from the firm's research arm, StatCounter Global Stats, said that based on daily OS data alone, business users in particular are still reluctant to move from Windows XP despite Microsoft's urge to upgrade. Usage of Windows XP significantly peaks during the working week (Monday through Friday) while usage of Windows 7 dips in the same timeframe.
Now, enter Windows 8 with an entirely new interface. Switching between Windows XP and Windows 7 is one thing, but businesses may be reluctant to spend time and money re-training employees on how to use the new Windows platform. A survey conducted by Forrester Research earlier this month revealed that only 33-percent plan to upgrade while 40-percent haven't even considered the new OS. Ten percent plan to skip Windows 8 entirely.
"The new Windows 8 interface represents a radical overhaul for Microsoft, allowing it to enter the tablet market with the new Surface. The scale of change of the desktop experience, however, may heighten the initial reluctance of traditional business users to upgrade to this new OS," Cullen added.
Windows 8 is officially making its debut today followed by a full retail launch tomorrow, October 26.

BEFORE you vote me down blindly -- you tell me what the real difference are besides vista's more aggressive caching and colour scheme.
Windows 7 feels 10x smoother
BEFORE you vote me down blindly -- you tell me what the real difference are besides vista's more aggressive caching and colour scheme.
BEFORE you vote me down blindly -- you tell me what the real difference are besides vista's more aggressive caching and colour scheme.
Windows 7 feels 10x smoother
A fresh install of Vista with $50AU worth of ram works great - go try it some time.
No one comes from a Microsoft OS and goes to an open source OS.
The only reason why XP users dip is that old XP machines had broken or scrap and new hardware were already pre-loaded with Windows 7.
The reason for dip in XP users are either the hardware broke or it was scraped and new hardware that replaced them was already pre-loaded with Windows 7
There are some fairly significant differences between Vista and 7 underneath the hood, particularly in matters of memory management. It's enough to justify 7 as a separate OS rather than a Vista service pack. But on the surface, with what the user sees, I'd agree that the two OS's are much more similar than not.
Windows 8, on the other hand, is a drastic overhaul both in looks and interface. I don't think anybody would mind that, though, if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft is actively blocking people from customizing the OS back into something they're familiar with. It's that attitude that has me baffled and frustrated with 8 -- since when did Microsoft start caring how we customize our systems?
BEFORE you vote me down blindly -- you tell me what the real difference are besides vista's more aggressive caching and colour scheme.
UAC doesn't pop up for every single thing
Windows 7 runs games faster
Networking and sharing are much smoother
Even on a clean install Vista is much slower
Taskbar has a number of useful enhancements
Windows 7 loads quicker
Drivers work better
Better hardware support
Better Audio controls (for people that have lots of outputs like me)
Doesn't crash as much
And did I mention it's quicker (look at benchmarks before you comment)
Yep, I'd still be using XP if it weren't for the RAM limitation.
Yep, Microsoft shareholders must be fuming at this stupidity
not just color scheme, but a hardware accelerated GUI, which off-loads a ton of crap from the CPU which is largely what capped entry level Vista machines.
But aside from that, most of the improvements in win7 are behind the scenes in finally implimenting a lot of what was learned fromt he minwin project. Mostly by figuring out how the OS worked, they were able to reduce duplicated code, and clean up the registry, while zipping up a lot of potential vulnerabilities. They also worked a lot on loading order to improve boot time.
To be honest win7 is really a big service pack for Vista, but due to the bad PR Vista had gotten, 7 needed a new name. But it was a bit more than just better caching and a paint job. It is a reduction of bloat, with better utilization of the hardware so that things run better, but no new features to speak of.
Win8 on the other hand takes the win7 core, and does nothing but add features. You look at everything from multi-screen support, to task manager, to IE10, to the superbar, to ram management and cannot help but notice (from a technical perspective), that win8 is a step forward. Not a huge leap of progress mind you, but it really looks like they took a hard look at their feature set, saw what people were installing to make win7 more usable, and then incorporated that in the OS design. Even with the new start screen, power users will quickly realize that all of the shortcut keyboard commands we have grown so accustomed to still work just fine. The GUI has changed, but the keys still produce the same results, which makes me quite happy about it. Again, not a revolutionary change that is worth $140, but an evolutionary change that is easily worth $40.