Despite Microsoft’s occasional troubles – whether the embarrassment that was the Kin or the fact that their tablet efforts may repeat their mistakes – one thing MS is clearly doing right is Windows 7.
Case in point: Windows 7 has already eclipsed Windows Vista in market share. With 14.5% market share, it has taken only 9 months to reach a number that Vista took 21 months to reach.
So, make a good, stable, pretty operating system that everyone likes and is available on inexpensive machines, and people will buy it in droves? Who knew, right?
Windows 7′s growth also seems to be coming at the expense of Apple, as OSX slipped again to the same share levels it was at in October 2009: roughly 5%.
The funny thing, though? Both Windows OSes are still dwarfed by – wait for it – Windows XP, which still dominates at 61.9%.
Let’s think about that: sixty-two percent of people are still using an OS that came out nine years ago. Why people don’t wish to upgrade is something of a mystery: is it cost?; compatibility?; or has the growth of the web mean that which OS people are using matters less?
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I love Windows 7. The reason it is so much better than Vista is because it IS Vista with a bit more polish and what not. It will be interesting to see what they do with the next version of Windows and their Kinect technology.
Windows 7 is okay-ish. It’s designed for grandmas who can do with dumbing down of the UI and removal of classic features and backward compatibility. Windows 7 removes a boot load of features of XP. Windows 7 is crap for serious professionals. They remarketed Vista but this time successfully. XP is the all time best OS. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista
Is it really a surprise that most people still use XP? For one, there was 7-8 years where XP was the only PC OS, so think of the base that it built up. Also, for the average user, they’re not going to update their computer until it dies. And enterprise customers are even worse. Just compare it cars; what year was your car built? Chances are it’s over five years old. Normal people just don’t change computers every year or two…