Windows 7 growing faster than Vista, overtakes Mac OS X
By Emil Protalinski | Last updated January 21, 2010 7:30 AM
Windows 7 growing faster than Vista, overtakes Mac OS X
Data source: Net Applications
Windows 7 sold well during the 2009 holiday season, and the results are showing up, not only in sheer revenue, but in the OS market share numbers as well. Nevertheless, in December 2009, Linux was the only operating system to show positive percentage growth in market share.
From: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#4] 21 Jan 11:54 To: Aurora [#2] 21 Jan 16:23
Hehe! Yeah, a lot of people get fooled by those numbers. First, they're for market share, not installed base, and there really isn't a "market" to speak of for Linux. Nobody's keeping track of licenses shipped/assigned. Second, those are desktop numbers.
From: Aurora [#5] 21 Jan 16:26 To: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#4] 21 Jan 17:30
Oh, I see. Yet another bit of meaningless news. There are lots of folks who will draw conclusions based upon this type of article but I am sure it is not intentionally meant to mislead anyone. ;-)
From: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#6] 21 Jan 17:42 To: Aurora [#5] 21 Jan 19:30
No, I doubt there's any intent to mislead. Ars is quite pro-Linux; this is just data. Most other sites wouldn't even acknowledge Linux's existence, instead relegating such a low number to statistical noise.
From: NateHoy [#8] 4 Feb 21:03 To: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#4] 4 Feb 21:52
Interesting. Even though Linux itself is free and there are tons of great distros out there that are ALSO free, 1% of computer users actually want something out of Linux that they are willing to pay for.
I'd be willing to bet a lot of that is corporate. My company does a little bit of Linux in the server and specialized computer area, and it's almost always got a Red Hat on the box.
From: NateHoy [#11] 5 Feb 17:19 To: worsel [#10] 6 Feb 3:32
Or, in a few cases, they probably want someone on the other side of the phone to fix problems. Most "payfer" Linux distros are mostly paying for a helpdesk, and some extra testing and packaging.
