Windows Vista usage share surges 355 percent, leaves Mac OS X in the dust

>>If someone gave you a gadget to review and said to keep it, wouldn't you write a favourable review of the [company's] product?<< Not if you had any integrity. Besides, this article says that everything he gets ends up going back. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/mossberg.html?pg=1

@jp - I did address your post and you still haven't adressed my question. When you say OS X are you talking only about Leopard or about all versions? I am curious about the numbers of Leopard compared to Tiger and on down the line of the feline family of OS X. Since you are making the point that you cannot count Vista upgrades as a positive, I wonder if your OS X numbers or those of others are being counted in that manner as well. --tayme

Anyone who has heard Paul rip into Microsoft on any number of topics would tend to disagree with you. He also uses many Mac products and frequently comments about them in a positive light. The article was about Vista uptake, and shows that it is similar to XP at the approximately the same point after XP's rollout. Mac share has increased dramatically as well but from a much lower level of market share, I wouldn't let the term icabal upset you to much, you should here him talk about the Windows Mobile platform, he pretty much ripped them a new one last time I heard it brought up.

@Johnpapola You had one conclusion not supported by the math that really should be called out. You said: "So the Windows PC market is growing at 10 to 12% which is a decent living, but the Mac is growing at 30% or more which means Apple is taking a bigger and bigger percentage of that pie." While that is technically true, the hugely better growth rate doesn't correspond to a huge growth in share. (A fact that usually gets ignored by fans of any product or idea with a tiny share) Let's assume two products. Big product has a 99% share and tiny product has a 1% share. The market grows by 12%. Tiny product has a 30% growth that year. Sales Overall market 1000->1120 (12% growth rate) Big product 990->1107 (11.8% growth rate) Tiny product 10->13 (30% growth rate) Market share ratio Year 1 - 99.0:1.0 Year 2 - 98.8:1.2 That 30% growth rate only corresponds to a 0.2% increase in share. Tiny product's fans put out BIG BANNER HEADLINES: TINY PRODUCT SALES UP 30%. BIG PRODUCT DOOMED!!! Big product puts out a press release: Big product sales up 11.8% Sales of Big Product set new record at 1,107 units sold. Is Big Product "doomed"? Well, if tiny product can continue to grow at that rate, they'll become significant in a few decades but it's a little premature to talk about doom because you lost 0.2% market share in a year.

Or, to give another example. Using the same data from the same survey. Linux had 86% growth this year. Almost triple the growth of Apple's OS X. The bad news for the Linux fans is that after 17 years they still have less than 1% of the market. But somewhere, a Linux Fanboi is posting: LINUX GROWTH RATE TRIPLE APPLE'S OS X. CONSUMERS REJECT APPLE "FRIENDLY GUI" FOR OPEN SOURCE. COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE DOOMED!!!

@mikegallos Mike, your calculator may be accurate but you just don't "get it", do you? No one is claiming that Microsoft or Windows is "doomed" or that the OS X is going to dominate the PC market. The simple fact is that the Mac is gaining share. And Linux too. Both of these gains come at the expense of the Windows OS.

In my opinion its about time Apple had more of the market share. At lest now viruses will be made for the mac as well so that way everything will be distributed. In a negative will make leopard appear like XP but will benefit when apple will realize that they should spend some more time on their security. Not being negative right now im typing on a mac (just to note) but that's probably what is going to happen. it will benefit though both operating systems in the end.

@DRWAM "but market share is the small part of the story." Exactly! Apart from when certain logic takes a back seat and everyone chimes in with the "Microsoft/DellNokia/etc has more marketshare.

Alternative titles for this post: "Most people have no taste." "People still buy crap by the truckload"

@daveinla - "...vista is poised to take over XP as users have no choice anyway !" No choice??? Why do you insist on saying that people are "forced" to use Windows Vista, when they are not. I am not sure why a Windows user would not want thier new home PC running Vista. It is much more secure and easier to use than XP. You might have to learn a few new clicks or whatever, but overall, Vista is much better than XP was...and that was MS' goal...to build a better more modern OS. A person can still buy a PC with Linux or XP pre-installed, if they want...or they could install it themselves. Heck, I just bought a MacBook Pro and installed Vista. So tell me...how is there no choice??? --tayme

@Avro, we have been through this before, and no, you are wrong sir. Look at the OEM licensing agreement. It is actually quite clear. "To distribute the Software or Hardware in this Pack, you must be a System Builder and accept this license. “System Builder” means an original equipment manufacturer, an assembler, a refurbisher, or a software pre-installer that sells the Customer System(s) to a third party. " The major question to ask is if you are selling it to a third party. The answer is clearly NO. So, you are not qualified to use an OEM license. I'm 100% positive that the BSA would agree with this assessment. And, if you decide to sell it to a third-party, it requires more than just scrubbing the disk. You must install the OEM Preinstallation Kit, and you must apply a COA label. The wording is pretty clear. And before you ask, this applies across the world to countries that the software may be legally exported to. Please educate yourself and stop providing this incorrect information. http://www.microsoft.com/oem/sblicense/default.mspx

@Tayme... "did you ever think that maybe Paul is sitting back and having a good laugh at all of us as we debate? Me thinks so!!!" That could be. Though that would confirm that he's just link/flame baiting, which he categorically denies. So if he's doing that, he's a hypocrite. I don't think that's the case. I just think he's angry about being digitally harassed by zealots (get over it, it's part of the job of being a pundit). And I think he fundamentally doesn't understand how to derive meaning from market-share statistics. He's said things like "I just like worldwide share" or "I just find it interesting". Please. Why is it interesting? What makes it useful, actionable information? People having options and making a conscious choice are very different things. I think most users buy a new PC with Vista, and are happy. Great. Did they decide "I'm really excited about Vista and want to buy a Vista PC" or did they go to the store thinking "man, my computer is slow and old... time for a new one". That's the choice we're talking about. People buy PCs or Macs... not operating systems for the most part. I'm talking consumers here, not IT buyers. In the enterprise, the user really doesn't have a choice at all. They are given what the company provides with few exceptions. On a side note... exchange on my gen-one iPhone works beautifully. Global address lookup. Calendaring with event requests. Mail with all folders. Exchange addressbook. All are there. All co-exist seemlessly with my other accounts. Awesome. If Apple releases the iPhone on all carriers and adds a slide-out keyboard model to the lineup, they really could gain iPod-like marketshare of the smartphone market. No question. As it is, I see no reason why they won't be #2 in relatively short order.

Well played Dipsht! Heh. Well played. But get ready for a long one. And there's no anger in it. As for Paul's motivation... I think you're right that he's reacting to his perception that "everyone" is saying the Mac will "take over". The problem, is that this is not rational. Paul's "iCabal" strawman approach is basically lumping a wide range of opinions and statements into one ball and then referring to that group strictly by the most nutty and zealous among them. It's called stereotyping. It's human nature... but not the good part of it. Now, Paul is overall a good guy. I believe that. He's no Enderle, who we clearly both believe is a shameless shill and relentless Apple-basher of the most dangerous order (because he is so often quoted by the ignorant press). I'm not about to say that there aren't ridiculous statements being made about the Mac. It's the internet. It's the platform "wars". Of course it's overdone by various people on both sides. Some say the mac is "taking over" which is plainly ridiculous. Some say, like Enderle did at the start of 2007, that the Mac will face it's most existential threat and that Apple will soon be exiting the PC business. What Paul should decide for himself is, what kind of pundit is he. Is he a gutter fighter that puts himself in the middle of ridiculous net commentary and resorts to comparably disprovable arguments (as he did here). Or is he an honest, objective reviewer that uses lots of products and treats them all on their merits and weaknesses. He certainly claims to the be the former at every opportunity. But his "iCabal" rhetoric and posts like these put him firmly in the camp of the former. So long as his self-proclamations don't align with his actions, there's going to be room for honest criticism. If he were just a shill like Enderle I'd ignore him all together. But I hope for more from Paul. I like his work and consider him a real resource. That's why I'm here. "John, what you say about people upgrading to Vista.  Isn't the same true for the Mac?  Isn't there a relatively large contingent of Mac fans that are going to upgrade to the newest version no matter what, irregardless of new features or the "wow" factor?" Of course that's true, just as there are PC gamers that upgrade their rigs every six months, but you are confusing things here. Let's stick to what has actual value. The numbers that have meaning for people. Vista's userbase growth rate has value. It has value for developers. Now that they're 16% of the overall userbase, developers should have more reason to target vista technologies in their applications. That's value. That's meaning. If you want to know if Vista is a "success" you must first define what that means. Any version of Windows is going to sell like crazy and make gobs of money. Microsoft could have marketed XP SP2 as a new OS (though that would've been a stretch) and called it a huge success. I would argue that the success of a Windows version is whether it accelerates demand for PCs. It appears to have not. I'm not saying it's a failure. Vista seems to be a good OS, so that's great for everyone. Now... how does this matter to the Mac? Did Vista's rapid replacement of XP in the userbase hurt the Mac? No. The Mac's share of the overall userbase grew. You could argue that given that fact, Vista helped the mac... or that the Mac helped itself by being excellent. Regardless, Vista's rate of userbase expansion hasn't impacted the mac and is therefore not a statistic you can meaningfully use to trash the mac or claim that the mac is being "left in the dust". Those statements, and this analysis by PC World and Paul, are stupid and plainly wrong. They lack basic reason and meaning and appear to be an intentional misuse of statistics. Do Mac zealots do the same? Yes. Does that make it right? No. If you want to know who's being successful, just look at the their revenues. There's a reason Wall Street does it. And to call Apple's growth anything other than HUGE and Spectacular would be silly. Growing sales 30 to 50% year-over-year in a market like this is Huge and Spectacular and that's why Apple is getting all this attention.

@Dipsh t Admin I am afraid I could care less about what Microsoft has to say on the matter. As far as legality goes they are hardly in a position to lecture anyone (take a look at the DOJ and EU judgements). Why worry about the splinter in your brother's eye when you have a log in your own? But I do care what the law has to say on the matter and I have had both our IT department and our University take a look at it and under our laws here in Europe we qualify as 'system builders'. If it was not so Microsoft would be after Amazon and the Computer warehouses for selling OEM versions to computer users. They probably would not go after consumers as Microsoft's reputation is about as low as it can get. We get the OEM version at a good price and provide our own support. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me and not a bad deal for Microsoft.

"I am afraid I could care less about what Microsoft has to say on the matter." That is a very cavalier attitude. I'm not trying to tell you what *you* should do, but please don't inform others to do the same without pointing out the risks, whatever those risks may be. Likewise, I'm sure that the BSA would like to hear the name of the university you work for. Hey, the BSA gives finders fees for alerting them to any form of piracy that checks out. Give me their name in a PM and I *promise* I won't tell on you. ;) ;) So I guess two wrongs make a right, right? However, even if I were to give you that you quality as a system builder, your situation is different from the intended audience here, most of whom are not system builders. So it is bad advice telling them to do this.

Dipsh t Admin So far you have proved the sum and total of nothing. If the practice was illegal it would be shut down very quickly and I would not advocate piracy at all.. Just purchase software legally for the best price you can. In fact I consulted both the university and my employer's IT Department before I purchased an OEM version just to make sure. The replies I got were on a new machine or on one with a scrubbed disk it would be legal. Microsoft is also aware of me using it and it is fine as long as I restrict it to the original machine I have installed it on. The OEM versions of Windows sell here for about the same price as OS X Leopard (although the Leopard price includes support) so please don't try and suggest that anyone is trying to get a free ride. We are contributing to Microsoft's bottom line and legally although perhaps not as much to the bottom line as some would like. ;-)

@DRWAM You could be very right. The law here tends to side with the consumer over the corporation. Let's just agree that we should all try to keep legal in our own locations. I actually originally turned down buying an OEM version of Vista because I wasn't sure and had the guys at IT departments at work and the university look at the EULA before I purchased an OEM XP (I need it rather than Vista for a course). I have been in touch with Microsoft and they seem happy enough as long as I restrict the usage of Windows to the machine I originally installed it on (my Mac Pro). A full retail version would give me more options with other computers, but I don't need these options. BTW in the last 5 years Microsoft stock has increased 21%, Apple's has increased 2,270%. That says something.

"That says something." So does the fact that Microsoft is one of Warren Buffett's top 10 stock choices. Not so for Apple.

@ Waethorn Prove it in a European court of law. By the rules here, I am a system builder. FYI Microsoft doesn't make the law here nor interpret it. As for the stock, the numbers don't lie.

Anyway, check out the licensing terms found on Microsoft's UK site: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/licensing/lessthan250/learn/agreements-restr... Now, while *YOU* may be able to be classified as a system builder, the general audience here on the SuperSite is not. Your suggestion to purchase an OEM copy is flat out wrong for the average person. They can not legally install the software. End of story, there really is no wiggle room. Of course an OEM can, but we are not talking about that here. To rehash what I am saying: If you are an individual that is wanting to install Windows on their Mac, you can not use the OEM version. Avro, you are more than welcome to PM me the name of your university, and I'll ask the BSA what they think. I"m sure Waethorn could log in to the OEM Partner site and provide us with all of the necessary details.

@ Dipsh t Admin I have read the EULA before purchase too. It comes down to what is the definition of a 'system builder' and here under our laws I would come out as a system builder and in the end the opinions of our courts are all that matter. As I mentioned also I have been very upfront with Microsoft about what I was doing (I needed to contact them on a certain matter) and they seemed pleased enough with it.

tayme said: @daveinla - "...vista is poised to take over XP as users have no choice anyway !" No choice??? Why do you insist on saying that people are "forced" to use Windows Vista, when they are not. I am not sure why a Windows user would not want thier new home PC running Vista. It is much more secure and easier to use than XP. You might have to learn a few new clicks or whatever, but overall, Vista is much better than XP was...and that was MS' goal...to build a better more modern OS. A person can still buy a PC with Linux or XP pre-installed, if they want...or they could install it themselves. Heck, I just bought a MacBook Pro and installed Vista. So tell me...how is there no choice??? --tayme Easy, how many users get to choose what platform they want to use in a business setting? Case closed.

@johnpapola Thank you for the lengthy but clear-headed commentary. I agree with you, there's hope yet for this blog. Comments like yours keep it alive.

@halesgarcia, Thanks! That's a very nice thing to say. I like participating in the discussion (obviously) and I like Paul in general. But logic must prevail. I will say this about this headline... it's certainly true that Vista has already left the mac in the dust overall. It's Windows. Windows is dominant and each new version leaves everyone else in the dust. It's the analysis beyond that obvious and indisputable fact that I have big problems with. And strawman rhetoric. Who, beside fanboys, are saying that the mac is "taking over"? Nobody.

I would like to interject a few points. First, on the whole system builder flap. Both Microcenter, Fry's, Altex, and a few others sell system builder versions of Windows to the general public. I did take the liberty of asking the department manager of Fry's responsible for selling the OEM disks. The manager stated that anyone building a computer for their own personal use qualifies as a system builder. The manager also stated that Microsoft was aware of this selling practice and encouraged it. I'll leave it to you guys to debate this point any further. Second, in this whole Vista vs OS-X debate, one point has been left out. How many first time computer users bought either a new Windows-based PC or a new Mac OS based Apple computer? Its very possible that both Microsoft and Apple are both getting new customers which is changing the total computer user base. Its very possible based on the upsurge in Mac notebooks that Apple is succeeding with college students, pop culturally influenced, and wealty families. However, its very possible Microsoft is still succeeding with older, more pragmatic, and less wealthy customers. If these first time new users have never used the other competing operating system at all, is it really a detriment to either company? Where Apple succeeds with one part of the total base and new users, they will fall short with another segment of the base and new users. Both can grow at different rates and not be hurting the other. Why? Because of the world's population being approximately 7 billion, only 1 out of every 1000 own a computer. There's plenty of room for growth for Apple, Microsoft, Linux/Unix, and new players to the market. Finally, everyone has a choice. There are plenty of companies that will sell computers without an OS. Remember that one of the golden rules of business is that the customer is always right. You can debate that method but many businesses tend to bow to public pressure in many instances throughout history. There are thousands of variants of the Unix/Linux OS and freely available through local libraries, Universities, friends, and Wi-Fix hot spots (or soon Wi-Max). To say there is no choice other than Microsoft Windows is a falsehood. While Windows is the most requested and in demand for the last 15 years going to 16 years, there are plenty of alternatives available. It brings me to my next point. Not everyone is a Windows user or a Mac user. I've seen plenty of people in coffee shops and wi-fi hot spots that use Linux/Unix variants in notebooks. Its like the notion that everyone is either a Republican or Democrat in America. Not so, as there are other parties that don't garner the same popular attention. The Green Party, the Reform Party, the Libertarian Party, The Constitution Party, the Centrist Party, the Independence Party, and many others still exist in the United States. Just like political tastes vary, so do our OS preference. No one OS choice is right or wrong. I really don't think its fair to demonize someone for their OS choice. Its one of the rights of a free democratic society. Its something to be cherished and protected as some people in nations don't have that kind of choice. Peace.