Windows XP is no longer the hottest desktop operating system in the world. Neither is it the coolest at the moment. That has however not stopped it from dominating desktop operating system charts for the longest time ever. Microsoft stopped supporting it a year ago after a decade of unprecedented growth and is currently preparing to officially launch the operating system it believes will have been installed in over a billion devices within the next two to three years. Yet even with all that and the all-dominating (and awesome) Windows 7, XP has stuck to its guns. Unscathed. Not any more. For the last few years, it has been slowly losing its share of the pie.
The most recent monthly data from Net Applications shows that Windows XP’s marketshare dropped from 15.93% the previous month to 14.60% in the just ended May. On the other hand, Windows 8.1, the much-needed update to the ill-fated Windows 8, is on the rise. Windows 8.1 saw a rise in its install base with 12.88% of the PCs that Net Applications managed to monitor last month using it up from the 11.16% that did so in April. If Windows XP’s decline continues at the same rate or even more this month (June) and Windows 8.1’s rise also proceeds at the same rate or higher then the latter may overtake the former.
Windows 7 remains the most widely used operating system version in the world commanding a 57.76% lead. The first non-Microsoft operating system version is Apple’s OS X 10.10 which has a 4.2% share of the market. Overall, Microsoft’s Windows operating system still remains the most widely used boasting 91.07% share of the desktop OS market. This is a rise since at a similar time last year Windows’ marketshare stood at 90.99%. Apple’s Mac OS comes in a distant second with 7.35% while Linux still remains the preserve of geeks a few desktop users since it only has less than 2%.
