Windows 7 Passes XP, Now Most Popular OS in the World
Exactly two years after its launch, Windows 7 has now become the world's most popular operating system.
Data provided by StatCounter indicates that Windows 7 had an average market share of 40.5 percent in October, up from 39.0 percent in September. Windows XP fell from 40.6 percent to 38.5 percent in the same time frame.
Windows Vista is somewhat stale at 11.2 percent and does not seem to be retreating much these days, while Mac OS X made a jump to 7.2 percent share. Linux has an estimated market share of 0.8 percent.
The market share data released by StatCounter highlights the strong presence of Windows XP in enterprise environments as XP share during the week is on the same level with Windows 7 at about 39 to 40 percent, but dips as low as 35 percent on weekends. Windows 7 climbs to close to 43 percent on weekends.
Last month, Microsoft announced that it has sold 450 million Windows 7 licenses, which keeps it close to 20 million units a month or about 650,000 million licenses sold per day, which is a pace Microsoft has maintained since the launch of the OS two years ago. In comparison, Microsoft in its Q4 2008 report that it had sold 180 million Vista licenses by the end of 2008 - more than two years after launch, if we count in the Express Upgrade marketing campaign that allowed retailers to pre-sell Windows Vista before it became available in January of 2007.
This is according to StatCounter, however, as Net Applications still sees Windows 7 behind Windows XP at 34.6 percent versus 48.0 percent.
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Douglas Perry was a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware covering semiconductors, storage technology, quantum computing, and processor power delivery. He has authored several books and is currently an editor for The Oregonian/OregonLive.
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icepick314 "about 650,000 million licenses sold per day"Reply
good lord that's more than the entire population of Earth!!!
joking aside, Windows 7 IS great OS overall...easy on the eye and almost no crashes...probably THE best OS ever from MS besides Windows 2000.... -
zorky9 If the economy's not as bad as it had been the past couple of years, companies would have long ago upgraded to 7.Reply -
beardguy Great news. XP was good in it's day, but it really needs to die already.Reply
I work for a fortune 500 company and we are just now finally upgrading to Windows 7 from XP.
Windows 7 FTW! -
gmcizzle I was very reluctant to move from XP to Win7, especially after I had to use the mess known as Vista on my laptop. I moved to win7 recently...mainly because of BF3...and I have to say I really like it. With decent hardware, it seems to be much more responsive than XP and has a few nice things XP doesn't (ie. theme/bg profiles, system tray icon control, etc.). The only annoying thing about win7 is the icons seem to be a lot larger than on XP. Basically, if you are still using XP or XP 64-bit like I have for a while, you will like win7 as long as you are open to it.Reply -
billybobser Slow vista take up was primarily down to driver issues.Reply
Windows 7 is a debloated vista pretty much.
If windows 8 changes the game again, it'll be Vista all over again.
To be honest, i'd like a quicker (cut the fat) and more customisable version (add the fat back in how you like it) made available. Instead of a limited features version and a full featured version. -
gamebrigada "or about 650,000 million licenses sold per day"Reply
Good golly those aliens love our operating system! Or are people buying licences by the thousands as collectibles? -
casperstouch Windows 7 is great for personal use, but until Windows 7 drivers improve, it becomes more compatible with other software, and it becomes more secure then the company I work for will use it. Until then, it will be Windows XP, RedHad, and centOS.Reply