It has taken a few years, but Microsoft’s Windows 7 has finally surpassed that old workhorse of Windows XP to become the world’s most widely used operating system according to StatCounter. Vista never took that crown as it was widely detested by its userbase, but Windows 7 put Microsoft back on course with an easy to use, good looking, and stable OS.
Whilst Apple dos get most the headlines in tech these days, and as a company is now worth more than Microsoft – Windows 7 overtook the market-share of Apple‘s Snow Leopard within just two weeks after launch – and it has seen pretty steady growth since. Windows 7 overtook Vista by July 2010 – just 9 months after launch, but it has taken two years to surpass Windows XP.
After the success of Windows 7, Microsoft has taken the bold step to completely re-imagine the OS for Windows 8 – reflecting the Metro design of Windows Phone 7 more than the traditional desktop look that users have got used to over the past decade or more.
One thing to note about these stats from StatCounter are that they only track web-connected PC access, so any PC user without an internet connection would not be counted in these results. This will reflect little on the ratio between Windows and Mac users, but it is likely that a good proportion of those without internet would be using an older version of Windows such as XP, or even a Linux distribution – depending on the tasks they were built and are being used for.
Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Operating System Market Share