jueves, 1 de enero de 2015

December Was a Disaster for Windows 8.x...Why Aren't We Hearing about It?

Just for curiosity, I checked out one of those market share sites that Windows users love to quote to remind others how well new Windows versions are doing.  I expected Windows 8 and 8.1 (they have to mention them as a combo to hide poor figures) to experience some growth after Season shopping.

However, what I found was surprising.

Windows 8 and 8.1 combined seemed to have lost a whooping 7.07% market share!  They went down from 18.65% in November to 11.58% in December.  That is something!  Why aren't we hearing about this in all the (pro-Windows) tech sites??

Here are the figures for November:
To sum up, these are the numbers:
 Windows 7= 56.41
Windows 8 + 8.1= 18.65
Windows XP= 13.57
MacOS X 10.10= 2.66
Windows Vista= 2.65
Linux= 1.25
Windows NT= 0.11

And here are the ones for December:

For those who are lazy to read, these are the new figures:

Windows 7= 54.57 (-1.84)
Windows 8 + 8.1= 11.58 (-7.07)
Windows XP= 14.22 (+0.65)
MacOS X 10.10= 3.48 (+.82)
Windows Vista= 2.54 (-0.11)
Linux= 1.74 (+0.49)
Windows 10= 0.03

As it can be seen, the combo of Windows 8 and 8.1 did pretty bad in December.  But where did the lost market share go?  Certainly, Mac OS X 10.10 gained some, XP gained some (really??) and Linux gained some, but that couldn't possibly account for the lost 7.07%.
Who stole Windows 8 market share in December last year?
Windows boosters will readily say "Windows 10 did."  However, Windows 10 has got a 0.03% market share so far, so that is not the answer.

Actually, this seems a bit hard to believe: it was Windows NT!  According to the site, it went from an almost invisible 0.11 to a jaw-dropping 7.64% in one month! That means a gain of  7.53%.
So, does this mean that Windows users preferred to go to Windows NT instead of using Windows 8?
It is really hard for me to believe it.  Still, what calls my attention more is why tech sites are not trumpeting this like crazy, as they used to trumpet the beauties of Windows 8.
Go figure!

EDIT:
Some writers at Winbeta seem to think that NT is Windows 10. Interestingly enough, netmarketshare.com went offline suddenly and when I accessed it to check out again the difference between Windows NT and Windows 10, I found that the statistics for December are not available.  Interesting...

Still, I managed to take a snapshot of the figures from October (when Windows 10 was introduced) to December, 2014 and marked the difference for those writers who read pie charts and draw conclusions, but don't read lists.  Have fun! :P

UPDATE:

More food for thought here.  Netmarketshare made December statistics available again after a rather weird pulldown and now it shows an entirely different story.  Take a look at the full pie chart and list of OSes below:




Let's see the changes side by side to keep track of the rather weird changes.  The plus sign and minus sign mean how the correction has affected each OS:

As it can be seen, with the exception of Windows NT, the correction has been beneficial to all Windows versions and it has eroded the market share of non-Windows OSes.

Now, the observations one cannot miss:

1.  Why would an apparent error in Windows NT market share affect all other Windows versions?  Shouldn't it affect only Windows 8.x and NT? 

2.  Why would this error affect all non-Windows OSes negatively?  What made MacOS X 10.10 and Linux go down if they are totally unrelated to NT?

3.  Apparently, the market share Windows 8.x lost was eaten away by WINDOWS XP.  SERIOUSLY??  Windows 7 did not get much in comparison!  XP went from 13.57% in November to 18.26% in December and took a sizable chunk of Windows 8.x's market share! (:P)

Honestly, the correction seems quite suspicious to me.  Some could say that this looks more like an attempt to cover up something that did not go well for Microsoft.  

Bottom line: You should question the credibility of these sites if you had not done before.  Something looks indeed fishy here!  


2 comentarios:

  1. Truly interesting! The silence is revealing, don't you think?

    Now, look at this article: a Forbes writer who claims to write about "technology trends and how they impact real people", and who also says he has experience using Linux is NOW DEFENDING WINDOWS 8.1 and METRO!
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2014/12/31/bring-back-my-windows-8-1/?partner=yahootix

    What the...? Even MS pulled the plug on W8*!
    Maybe that was the last attempt to patch the sinking W8* boat, who knows...

    ResponderEliminar
    Respuestas
    1. Those "tech" writers lose my respect when they call Metro "modern" because anyone who knows about tech also knows Metro is as "modern" as 1996! Animated tiles are not innovative...they are 1996 tiles with an extra feature. Just that.

      Eliminar