Windows 8.x loses market share for second consecutive month

[Victorious Secret]

 

 

Cause for panic? Or just business as usual on this. 8.1 getting more popular but 8.0 dropping because people are upgrading faster or people are just buying less or the son of Satan did some witchcraft and is making MS fail? 

 

The anti-MS crowd will have a field day with this, thats for sure. 

 

 

 

Last month I reported that in June Windows 8.x had gone into reverse gear, losing market share for the first time, and posed this question -- "Statistical anomaly or downward trend?" It’s too early to call it a "trend" but anyone who expected the tiled OS to make a recovery in July will be disappointed by the latest set of figures. There’s a striking difference this time around too -- both Windows 8 and 8.1 show drops in July. Ouch.

 

In June, Windows 8.x lost overall share because while Windows 8.1 gained 0.26 percent, Windows 8 dropped 0.36 percent, giving the tiled OS an aggregate loss of 0.1 percent. In July however, while Windows 8 lost just 0.01 percent share, Windows 8.1 dropped by 0.05 percent (from 6.61 percent in June to 6.56 percent in July) -- the first time the new OS variant has lost market share. Combined Windows 8.x went from 12.54 percent in June to 12.48 percent in July, a fall of 0.06 percent.

The decrease in market share is still minimal, and there will be plenty of people in the comments arguing against its importance, but in no universe can the latest numbers be called a win for Microsoft’s divisive OS. At best, you can say it's stalled.

 

http://betanews.com/2014/08/01/still-in-reverse-windows-8-x-loses-market-share-for-second-consecutive-month/

[BernardoSLR]

I went back to Win7 for example...

[Goldilock]

I am afraid the day when microsoft is no longer among us and everyone back to linux

[shiftberry]

I hope Linux would be the most used OS in the future after Windows might encounter financial crisis.

 

Linux seems somehow promising!

[Enderman]

8.1 is better than 8 for sure

[loganryan99]

I hope Linux would be the most used OS in the future after Windows might encounter financial crisis.

 

Linux seems somehow promising!

 

I think it's going to be a loooooooooooooooooooong time before Microsoft has any financial issues...

[Victorious Secret]

I think it's going to be a loooooooooooooooooooong time before Microsoft has any financial issues...

 

Please, the internet always knows whats up. 

 

The internet knows better than Microsoft. The internet knows that the consumer unfriendly Linux will reign supreme over Windows. 

 

Despite the fact it doesn't reign supreme over OSX much less Windows. 

 

But hey, the Internet knows best. 

[Randomacts]

I am afraid the day when microsoft is no longer among us and everyone back to linux

 

 

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

[RH00D]

The only reason its "losing" marketshare is due to the massive amount of enterprises upgrading from XP to 7. This is also the reason there have been reports of traditional PC sales surging recently.

 

They also aren't upgrading to 7 instead of 8.x because 8.x "sucks". It's primarily for software compatibility. 7 is already matured to the point that a lot of LOB applications have likely been certified for 7 but not 8 so it's much more practical to go to 7.

 

At my work they've been upgrading from XP over the last year or two and the reason they went with 7 instead of 8.x is because we run a lot of software that is only compatible with XP/7.

[Gunzkewl]

I have no problems whatsoever with 8.1  :wub:

[Ashiataka]

The only reason its "losing" marketshare is due to the massive amount of enterprises upgrading from XP to 7. This is also the reason there have been reports of traditional PC sales surging recently.

 

They also aren't upgrading to 7 instead of 8.x because 8.x "sucks". It's primarily for software compatibility. 7 is already matured to the point that a lot of LOB applications have likely been certified for 7 but not 8 so it's much more practical to go to 7.

 

At my work they've been upgrading from XP over the last year or two and the reason they went with 7 instead of 8.x is because we run a lot of software that is only compatible with XP/7.

I didn't know windows 8 had such serious compatibility issues, though you've got to admit that's a pretty reasonable definition of 'sucks'.

[RH00D]

I didn't know windows 8 had such serious compatibility issues, though you've got to admit that's a pretty reasonable definition of 'sucks'.

It doesn't have compatibility issues. If you knew how most enterprise and LOB applications work then you'd know that they typically are programmed for an extremely specific conditions and criteria. Any application must undergo extensive testing to ensure 100% proper operation 100% of the time. This is the case because often LOB applications are completely custom developed for a specific business requirement. It may also be a case where a software they use is deprecated and isn't even supported on newer operating systems.

 

Large enterprises won't even install a mere application update or security update for Windows without first doing extensive testing in a lab environment before deploying it into a production environment.

 

This is true regardless of whether it's Windows, Linux, or just an application for either platform.

[TheProfosist]

The only reason its "losing" marketshare is due to the massive amount of enterprises upgrading from XP to 7. This is also the reason there have been reports of traditional PC sales surging recently.

They also aren't upgrading to 7 instead of 8.x because 8.x "sucks". It's primarily for software compatibility. 7 is already matured to the point that a lot of LOB applications have likely been certified for 7 but not 8 so it's much more practical to go to 7.

At my work they've been upgrading from XP over the last year or two and the reason they went with 7 instead of 8.x is because we run a lot of software that is only compatible with XP/7.

Do software companies think like oh no theres no way they would want to use our software on the newest version of windows.

[RH00D]

Do software companies think like oh no theres no way they would want to use our software on the newest version of windows.

Well everything ultimately boils down to money. For businesses Windows 7 will be supported until 2020. So it's just easier to put their efforts and money into one operating system environment instead of trying to support a myriad of different scenarios.

 

The other part is that enterprise infrastructures are often so vastly complex that something that seems trivial such as a slightly different version of software suddenly becomes a big issue when you try to scale it to 50,000 computers across multiple continents.

[TheProfosist]

Well everything ultimately boils down to money. For businesses Windows 7 will be supported until 2020. So it's just easier to put their efforts and money into one operating system environment instead of trying to support a myriad of different scenarios.

The other part is that enterprise infrastructures are often so vastly complex that something that seems trivial such as a slightly different version of software suddenly becomes a big issue when you try to scale it to 50,000 computers across multiple continents.

That for huge businesses which there were many that didnt switch to save money. All the smart ones went to 7 soonishly after sorta aroind sp1. There are tons more medium and small businesses though as well. A good example of the same thing is the us highway system. Oh its here and works fine we dont need to fix or maintain it. Now 10-20 years outside of its designed life its failing and unsafe and ia going toa literal fuckton to fix. Software and technology is not like a piece of machinery and im surprised that microsoft even extended support to 12 years and is now alowing companies to still pay for it. Bit at least their charging multiple times the cost of a license per pc. Maybe businesses will something for this but i doubt it.

[Qub3d]

These numbers are conjecture. I agree with RH00D's line of thought, just because what I've heard from my other friends with tech jobs: Initially we were all disgusted by 8.x, but I've seen a slow change of heart.

 

Considering that you can boot straight to desktop, Win8 is worth it for the less power-hungry interface, as well as improved management software (i.e. the amazing new task manager).

[deviant88]

On with the Window9 fail no one cared of win8 to begin with.

Here come the Linux peasants dreamers and their wishes...

I know its rude but damn i cant stop doing that since linux its so overrated in some peoples mind.

Edited August 3, 2014 by deviant88

[GoodBytes]

At work we got a bunch of Win8 PC's, b'ut downfrade them to Win7.

Not because Win8 GUI is different, but because the transition we are at is Win7.

 

So in that reguard, this is what probably happenning at other places. The percentage difference is too small, to really know anything from it.

 

All of the IT runs Win8, without a start menu replacement program. We do plan to transition to Win9, strat screen or no start screen.

In fact part of us in using Win8, is to help us in the transition process of Win9, when it will be released. Basiclly, the plan is, when Win9 is out, we will start testing all of our softwares we use, knowing Win8 better will allow us to to know better Win9, and it sabilities, to help us provide support when it gets released. Pass our server congiguration/GPOs tests, by that time, the first set of updates should released, fixing any early release bugs, and if all is good, and solid, when summer comes along, we will transition to Win9, if again all goes well (this includes our sides as well). But, to be fair, we decided to accelerate our Windows upgrade time. Because with Win7, we upgradeded towards its end of life, from XP. And even XP took time to upgrade too...

[lak]

I am afraid the day when microsoft is no longer among us and everyone back to linux

Mate if you understand technology, you will know that MS is a major player in enterprise environment and it will be a long time before they are 'no longer among us'.

 

 

At work we got a bunch of Win8 PC's, b'ut downfrade them to Win7.

Not because Win8 GUI is different, but because the transition we are at is Win7.

 

So in that reguard, this is what probably happenning at other places. The percentage difference is too small, to really know anything from it.

 

All of the IT runs Win8, without a start menu replacement program. We do plan to transition to Win9, strat screen or no start screen.

In fact part of us in using Win8, is to help us in the transition process of Win9, when it will be released. Basiclly, the plan is, when Win9 is out, we will start testing all of our softwares we use, knowing Win8 better will allow us to to know better Win9, and it sabilities, to help us provide support when it gets released. Pass our server congiguration/GPOs tests, by that time, the first set of updates should released, fixing any early release bugs, and if all is good, and solid, when summer comes along, we will transition to Win9, if again all goes well (this includes our sides as well). But, to be fair, we decided to accelerate our Windows upgrade time. Because with Win7, we upgradeded towards its end of life, from XP. And even XP took time to upgrade too...

 

Experience tells me that those who are still running and XP or W7, will skip W8/8.1 and make the leap to W9. The upgrade window for large enterprise was just too small to move to W8/8.1, especially when W7 was primarily the active deployment. Those who were running XP and didn't take the opportunity to transition their systems to W8/8.1 would just be a result of poor planning, IMO. As you say above, I think it is important to make incremental leaps, rather than radical ones, i.e. moving from XP straight to something like W9 - the learning curve is too high for end users. That being said, I think there are a lot of companies relying on W9 to be good because their roadmap points to it as being the next upgrade, having missed W8/8.1 - this probably applies strongly to the financial sector (banking industry, etc.). I think software vendors such as MS are just far too agile (influences such as Apple) for the enterprise environment, who don't cope well with change - so I guess, missing operating systems is just inevitable in the grand scheme of things.