Windows operating system share slides in June while OS X, iOS continue to climb

By on Jul 12, 2011 at 2:30 PM
Software July 12, 2011

Microsoft announced on Monday that it has sold 400 million Windows 7 licenses to date, but that hasn’t stopped the tech giant’s share of the global operating system market from sliding. According to market watcher Net Applications’ data for June 2011, Microsoft’s global operating system market share slid to 88.29% as it continued on its slow but steady decline. The second most popular OS in the world was Apple’s OS X, which was up a nominal amount to 5.37% of the global OS market, followed by iOS with 2.63%, Java ME with 1.12% and Linux with 0.95%. Though Android devices continue to sell rapidly, Net Applications placed the OS in the No. 6 spot in June with 0.72% of the global market. Since January of this year, Apple’s OS X and iOS market shares have risen steadily while Windows continues to slide. According to Net Applications’ revised data, Windows’ OS share dropped below 90% in January of this year for the first time since it climbed above the threshold. It had been reported earlier that the OS slid under 90% last November, but Net Applications has since updated its figures to show that Windows held a 90.81% share in November 2010 and a 90.29% share in December. Two charts showcasing Net Applications’ June data follow below.

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  • Anonymous

    umm windows runs the world….even steve admitted it.

    • Anonymous

      for now

      • Anonymous

        Not for now. For long time.
        Osx will never dominant because majority of world can’t afford macs.
        some 3 rd world countries don’t even know What apple is. Mean while they know msft.

      • Anonymous

        i never said os x would take over, but windows market share is slipping, thats a fact. there is no guarantee that they will continue to slip, there is no guarantee that they wont.

      • Anonymous

        Vote me up if you would rather have a used mac than a new pc! (writing this on my refurb macbook pro)

    • Anonymous

      …and Apple controls it.

      Despite being “small”, Apple dictates the direction of the market.

      • Anonymous

        thanks man funniest thing ive heard today.

      • Anonymous

        You don’t agree? Apple pushed out the first PC, created the first PDA (even coined the term), popularized the all-in-one with the iMac (and set a new design standard of colored translucent plastic… even the N64 quickly followed suit), popularized the HDD MP3 player, reinvented the consumer smartphone, popularized multi-touch, reinvented the tablet… the list goes on.

        When Apple enters a market, it makes HUGE waves, and competitors are wise to follow suit. Why do you think tablets were suddenly all the rage in 2010, after having been stagnant for a decade? Because Apple created the iPad, the first tablet that consumers wanted. 

        Apple is constantly trying to release the “next big thing”, and history says they’ve been right on the money a lot of the time. 

    • Servers

      You could make a pretty good argument that Linux runs the world.

      • Anonymous

        you know what you are right…linux servers run the world and windows is the client.

    • numetheus

      Actually, windows doesn’t run the world. Popular windows is simply a client that uses a network provided to it by something else. What runs the world are computers and computer networks like the internet. Windows is like a car shell people interact with. The engine that drives everything is Unix.

      • Anonymous

        Way to stretch an analogy past its limits.  I think Windows is like a stapler and OS X is like a fishing pole.  It is the staples and fishing line that matter, those are Linux… er, wait… Linux is really like a… forget it.

      • numetheus

        You obviously have no concept of how things are served on the Internet. I said absolutely NOTHING about OSX. An overwhelming amount of content is served to you by servers and appliances running Unix. I am not stretching it … that is absolute fact. Do you really think all of the data stored and served by sites like eBay are stored on a Windows machine????!?!?!? You are naive if so. And yes, I know for a fact working at the eBay datacenter here in Arizona.

      • numetheus

        What version of Windows is running on all of the Cisco gear that puts everything together? What version of Windows runs the mysql databases that serve an overwhelming amount of content? What version of Windows is running the Apache web servers? I’ll give you a hint. Not windows.

      • Anonymous

        @numetheus:disqus   I guess if all people do with their computers is use web browsers
        and email then, yes, Christopher, you might say the brains of the
        operation is whatever runs the Internet.  In that case, we might as well
        all switch to ChromeOS, but the fact that hardly anyone has adopted
        ChromeOS is pretty good evidence that most people do other things with
        their computer too.   You are thinking about dumb clients, but we
        haven’t gotten there yet.  I don’t really feel the need to justify my
        experience to you, but FYI there are a significant number of IIS servers
        around, and Apache runs on Windows, as does MySQL.  Most servers do run Linux, but there are way, way more IIS servers than Unix servers.  Why ya mad bro?

      • numetheus

        LOL I highly disagree? Really? Way more web servers running IIS? I am not going to question your experience, but clearly you are HIGHLY naive.

  • Bringit

    Apple wins again.  It’s well documented.  The above graph was even produced on a Mac.

  • Anonymous

    I wish they would separate consumers from corporate users. I’ve always wondered how OSX was doing in the home, because that OS is insignificant otherwise when trying to target the most users while using the least resources.

  • Anonymous

    Isnt that what the Windows Phone vs iOS graph looks like also?  0.37% gains in one year?  I look forward to seeing an article about that also.

  • http://www.droiddoes.com/ iNorm

    DROID has the modt market share so who cares????

    • Anonymous

      Dude android and google were not a wink in the tech worlds eyes when Micro$oft and Apple were around so please hush. 

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XIS3JBTINBBDVPE4GN2FUWUOGM Rich Wood

    When the government finally cuts back on spending and stops buying Macs, Mac sales will go back to where they were in the 90s except for the relatively small consumer market. It always amazes me when I go into schools and they are full of Macs and then you hear schools complaining that they don’t have enough money. So why pay double for Macs over PCs? Also, schools are supposed to be training students to compete in the market place and few businesses use Macs. I like Apple products but they are overpriced and they are not a productivity tool except maybe for graphics design (even if the graph in the article was produced on a Mac).

    • http://twitter.com/cdoruff Collin Doruff

      This is a great point, I never thought of it.
      I work at a private school over the summer, we use Macs in my classroom. It is SHOCKING to see how little these kids know how to use it when the school is filled with macs. But then again, they give every student a dell notebook with windows 7 professional. Every student, all ages.

    • Anonymous

      I wonder how much they save on IT related expenses and longer lifespans on their computers?

      People who think the price tag is the sole component of price are mistaken.

      In our office, we switched to Macs across the board because we spend money once, and they’re good to go. One of our managers is running a G5 iMac circa 2005. We couldn’t get crappy Dell computers (around $400-500) to last more than a 8-12 months without a critical problem, like the motherboard getting fried or it getting increasingly slow. They ended up to be much more expensive than a $600 Mac mini or $1100 iMac. 

      We also don’t have the resources for an IT department, which means Macs are beneficial.

      • Anonymous

        I’m working on a Dell Workstation right now.  It supports four monitors, it’s 5 years old and works like the day I took it out of the box.  And better still, Dell still supports the thing.  I can call them 24 hours a day, some one answers and they stay on the line until they solve my problem — which are very few.  Try that with Apple.  A dirty little secret is that Apple does not support their products after 90 days unless you purchase an extended warranty.  Add that to the fact that the products cost a ridiculous amount more and its no wonder Windows systems outsell Apple almost 20 to 1.

        My wife has a Macbook Pro and my daughter has an iMac.  They’re constantly using my computer where theirs fail.

      • Anonymous

        Actually, many times I’ve taken my older iMac (out of warranty) to the Genius Bar and they’ll give me free tech support.

      • Anonymous

        @really8888:disqus Really? Your 2 year old iMac won’t run Netflix?

        I find that hard to believe, as our 4 year old Core Duo (not even Core 2 Duo) iMac at home runs Netflix just fine. 

      • Anonymous

        My daughter gets some sort of “font book error” when Netflix tries to use
        Silverlight.

      • Anonymous

        @really8888:disqus Hmm, I’ve never that problem. Have you taken it to the Genius Bar?

        Googling it, it seems like you need to copy the Arial and Verdana fonts out of Font Book into your User font folder.

      • Anonymous

        Yes, it seems that way. I mentioned this to the Apple tech support
        fellow… just before he told me that my 90-day unlimited tech support had
        just run out.

      • Anonymous

        I get someone who speaks English every time I call Dell support for business hardware. Not sure what your point is.

      • Anonymous

        I think you sent this to the wrong person. I understand that the Dell
        business solutions tech support is located in the US.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XIS3JBTINBBDVPE4GN2FUWUOGM Rich Wood

        I run the IT department at my company. We buy mostly Dells ( I believe we have around 60 machines in active use between desktops and servers) and on average they last five years before we replace them. We rarely actually have a machine go bad — most common problem is hard drives failing but even that is a rare occurrence. Generally we replace old machines with newer faster machines as the nature of our business requires very fast hardware. Dell has been very responsive in the rare case that we have had a problem. It would be impossible for us to run our business on Macs because of the lack of actual productive software related to our business. As far as resources required to support this infrastructure (I hear that argument a lot in favor of Apple products) we have one network engineer and he is not overloaded by any means. Really I believe people like to use Apple stuff and any excuse will do to justify the expense, especially when it’s other peoples’ money.

      • Anonymous

        Again, see my line: we don’t have the resources for an IT department. If we did, PCs wouldn’t be a problem.

        If you’re a SMALL business (like under 10 people in the office), Macs make a lot of sense because they require very little maintenance. I’m looking forward to migrating to our own in-house server with Lion (the cost is ridiculously low) even though I have no expertise in servers. 

  • http://twitter.com/Synacks Synacks

    How’s the weather down there Apple?

    • Anonymous

      Profitable. Very profitable.

  • Anonymous

    Since when have iOS and Android been classed in the same breath as Windows and Mac? Remove those and the status quo is maintained. All this shows is a growth of people using mobile operating systems in addition to their desktop, not replacing them.

    • Anonymous

      I noticed this during the WWDC…Apple touts “growth” in OS sales by heaping iOS in with desktop OSes, then touts growth by heaping iPad sales into mobile OSes…so which is it, is iOS just a slush fund you can shift into any category to suit your needs?  Because that pile includes iPod touch, iPhone and iPad…hell, even Apple TV falls here.

      So in this, Apple claims “growth” in the PC OS segment, because iPhones sell well? Then Microsoft should lump in Windows Phone 6, as it still commands a hefty share of mobile OS installed base.

      Once again, meaningless stats mean little in application to a second of thought.

      • Anonymous

        iOS is iOS. It’s the same on iPhone, iPod, and iPad, and AppleTV just runs a custom UI over it.

        iOS is distinctly a mobile OS… then again, OS X runs on laptops, which are technically mobile devices.

        Also, iOS is based on the same core as OS X…

        In the end, they’re simply operating systems for computational devices, and categories are growing increasingly meaningless.

      • Anonymous

        In the end iOS is only good for opening apps!! iOS sucks and without apps it wouldn’t even exist! ipod touch, iphone, and ipad same thing. No custimization on the homescreen, you can just change the background and download apps and move them around, garbage.

        We still haven’t seen what you can do with the ipad, all that screen and you can’t customize it one bit. iOS sucks but hey you love it and will defend it.

      • http://twitter.com/sicmx SicMX

        @Trisjen1983:disqus 

        Each to his own. Some people like using their favorite apps (from 425.000/100.000 apps) while enjoying great portability and battery life. 

        Others like installing Anti-Virus software and constantly charging their device. Luckily everyone is free to do as they wish =)

      • Anonymous

        To continue your line of thought…   and OS X is really the same core as BSD.  And Linux is pretty similar to BSD, let’s count it too.  And Android is really just Linux, so let’s count that as well.

        but @Trisjen1983 , you say “In the end iOS is only good for opening apps!!”. So? What does any operating system do without applications? Strange argument there.

      • Anonymous

        @Trisjen1983:disqus ”In the end iOS is only good for opening apps!! iOS sucks and without apps it wouldn’t even exist!”

        Really? So what is your PC’s OS without software? Software (apps) have always been what makes a PC a PC. It’s the same with a smartphone.

        I mean, when I look at my PC’s desktop, it lists some files, tells me the time, and gives me an easy way to launch applications.

    • sirpaul

      Exactly what I was going to vent about. They compare everything so it shows growth. I’d like to see a comparison of Windows vs OSX and see the “sliding” there. I don’t mind Apple news at all – in fact I really enjoy it. But when you start reporting bullshit like this it really gets me fueled up. Engadget didn’t put a down spin on the 400M milestone like you did. Why are you guys so anti-Microsoft?

  • http://twitter.com/switchstyle Shuichi Aizawa

    that… is a cool windows logo render :)

    • Anonymous

      screw the article….love the logo

      • Anonymous

        Agreed.

  • Anonymous

    This is like a troll post.

  • http://twitter.com/cdoruff Collin Doruff

    So what if windows is on the decline? It still is owning the world in operating systems.
    Mac’s share is coming from music industry hipsters, college hipsters, and all other hipsters.
    Windows is generated from the rest of the world.

    • Anonymous

      Mac’s core users have always been graphics people.

    • http://twitter.com/sicmx SicMX

      The big reason Windows will remain on top for a while is because many people are happy with $199-299 netbooks or cheap laptops. Same reason why Android will stay on top. Many people aren’t willing/able to pay for quality (be it high end PCs/Macs or high end Android phones/iPhones)

      Price often dictates the mass market, not quality. This is also why Walmart is making a killing

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1001483324 Gerry Quaglia

    WP 7 > Android
    Android is a battery hog, buggy and is about to become overrun with rouge malware apps due to Google’s hands off approach on basically every about Android.  The whole update process sucks monkey ass as well.  I’m running iOS now, but if iOS 5 and the iphone 5 fail to deliver in the fall, I’m joining team Ballmer.

    • Michale11111

      That’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

  • Anonymous

    “Since January of this year, Apple’s OS X and iOS market shares have risen steadily”

    What data are you looking at?   OSX is down from its April high.

    • Anonymous

      Usually you compare something year-over-year, not month-to-month.

  • B Kavoosi

    youre trying to tell me symbian fell all the way into the other category? Bullshit. at least 20% of the cell phone market worldwide is still using symbian/nokia cellphones. there is something fucked about that list…

    And where the fuck is Linux…

    • Anonymous

      Linux, 0.95%.

  • Anonymous

    Separate mobile versus desktop operating systems. Is Windows still in decline? Is it still under 90% market share?

    There is a reason for that famous quote about statistics…

    • http://twitter.com/sicmx SicMX

      After getting an iPad 2 (iOS driven) i seldom use my computer (PC) to browse the internet. Your point?

      • Anonymous

        I asked two questions and made a comment about why more information should
        be made available when presenting statistical information. Rather than
        anectodal evidence, such as you using your PC less now that you have an
        iPad, I would like more information.

        Lies, damned lies, and statistics…I’m not implying anyone I giving false
        information. I am asking for more information so I can draw a reasonable
        conclusion.

        Are you hoping for a particular point or is this sufficient?

        ———————
        JNM
        nathaniel.jason@gmail.com
        On Jul 13, 2011 4:21 AM, “Disqus”

  • Michale11111

    What do you say to that Mini_Me?

  • Anonymous

    I paid $32.67 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Toshiba laptop for $94.83 being delivered to our house tomorrow by FedEX. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores. I even sold a 46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $52.78 to get. Here is the website we using to get all this stuff, 

    BidsOut .comLinux should be included! 

  • Theoneandonlybrooks

    So, Android has more market share according to constant reports from everyone who tracks it, so what’s the deal here? Is there some catch to how they monitor? Or is this report just crap?

    • http://twitter.com/sicmx SicMX

      A lot of Android devices consist of $100-200 phones that are mostly used to make phone calls and not much else.

  • Sandywilkinscr

    Android is Linux

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