Net Applications gathers information on Operating System usage from 40,000 websites it monitors, accounting for 160 million unique visitors. It found that in December, Windows 7's share rose 1.2 percentage points to 20.9 percent, crossing a barrier that Vista never managed to.
It's heavily criticized predecessor fell to just 12.1 percent in December, a drop of half a percentage point. This represents the lowest share Vista has claimed since July 2008. Usage of Windows Vista peaked in October 2009 at 18.8 percent, which by no coincidence is also the month Windows 7 was released.
Windows XP use fell to 56.7 percent in December, dropping 1.2 percentage points. It's plunge over the fourth quarter of 2010 was measured at about 3.3 percent, accelerating from 2.4 percent in the third quarter of 2010 and 2 percent in the second quarter.
Still, with the current trend in Windows XP use, Net Applications projects that it will still have 13 percent of the share in 2014 when Microsoft discontinues support for the 10 year old operating system. Since Microsoft has committed to a three year development cycle for Windows, it's highly unlikely that Windows 7 will ever reach the dominating 83.6 percent share touted by XP in November 2007.
Losses in Windows usage is being made up mostly by the use of mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS. Mac OS X use stayed put at 5 percent in December.
More Information: http://www.netmarketshare.com/
Written by: James Delahunty @ 4 Jan 2011 12:11
