http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3627466onehandle (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 03:02 PM
Original message
Windows market share dives to new low
Source: Techworld
Windows has suffered its biggest US market share dive in the last two years, an Internet measurement company has reported, sending the operating system's share under 90 percent for the first time.
In November, 89.6 percent of users who connected to the websites that Net Applications monitors did so from systems powered by Windows, a drop of 0.84 of a percentage point from October. The decrease was the largest slip by Windows in the last two years, and easily bested other recent down months, including May 2008 and December 2007, when Windows lost 0.51 and 0.63 percentage points, respectively.
Apple's Mac OS X, meanwhile, posted its biggest gain in the same two-year period, growing by 0.66 percentage point to end the month at 8.9 percent. November was the third month running that Apple's operating system remained above 8 percent.
Read more: http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=1078...
Why don't the primitives like Microsoft?
I mean, Bill Gates is a big Democrat and a big liberal after all.
Atman (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 03:07 PM
Response to Original message
1. Apple is dead!
Where do I get my Microsoft tatoo?
MineralMan (523 posts) Tue Dec-02-08 03:20 PM
Response to Reply #1
9. It comes automatically with Windows, version 6.6.6. Wait for it. You'll love it. You'll need it.
DS1 (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 03:07 PM
Response to Original message
2. Oh no! It's .4% under 90
glenhappy (764 posts) Tue Dec-02-08 03:09 PM
Response to Original message
3. Anyone for Linux?
HillWilliam (125 posts) Tue Dec-02-08 03:33 PM
Response to Reply #3
10. I haven't used anything but Linux for years. Don't miss Windoze a bit. Anything Windoze can do, Linux can do better. For free. I run my businesses on it because I am WAY too busy to screw with OS problems. They've finally got Linux down to a friendly, don't-need-to-be-a-geek package. The new Fedora update system and the Add/Remove software system is more reliable than Windoze. Every time we get Windoze updates at work, there's days of upset and crashes. Meh. At home, everything just rocks on fine.
MS is getting everything it has asked for.
Including 90% market share, apparently.
Most businesses would die for 90% market share, or even half or a third that.
Tandalayo_Scheisskopf (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 05:07 PM
Response to Reply #10
20. Yup.
Lately, XP updates have this great added bonus to them: The computer stops booting into the desktop.
Noooo...they aren't trying to push people to Vista. Much.
Is the above true?
eilen (657 posts) Wed Dec-03-08 07:54 AM
Response to Reply #20
32. OMG
I was wondering why my computer was doing this. I have a pc with xp on it I use for some programs that don't run on Mac. It appears that my computer goes into a coma every time it is "updated" and I have to reboot it. I don't use it very often but it is a PIA.
Gore1FL (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 05:51 PM
Response to Reply #10
21. Not DirectX
I'd move off of window except for 2 basic reasons:
1> I like to use my PC as a giant atari at times.
2> I am a Windows system admin and experiment a lot at home.
HillWilliam (125 posts) Tue Dec-02-08 06:34 PM
Response to Reply #21
23. I used to do Windoze admin
now I sleep peacefully undisturbed the whole night through
We may be pushed to Vista at my day-job some time in the future. I do development for Pocket-PC's (Symbol Barcode units, Mobile 5 and 6 based). Most of that is pretty forgiving though. We're putting that off as long as possible. Even my boss hated Vista. None of the Symbol development stuff would even load on it, so that put the ky-bosh on it pretty quick.
I run my wedding business and farm stuff on Linux cuz mostly I'm way too busy to do admin stuff at home any more. I just need to fling stuff together and have it "just go". Much before Core 8 RedHat didn't have the upgrade stuff worked out, but as of Core 9 it's really sweet. Wish I had time for games (there's a megaton of them out there) but I just don't. Between choring an DUing (hey, I'm down to one vice!) I'm usually either writing or scheduling or inventorying or somedangthing.
I gave my partner (totally not computer-literate) a Linux machine of his own. He manages just fine. I manage the both from my desktop here (which is to say about zero management at all).
One suspects the Bill Hill primitive is gay.
L0oniX (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
13. Vista sucks and people are tired of having to fork out more money for new software...to work with the new MS shit. Having to replace hardware to work with Vista pisses of gamers who pay $500+ for a fast state of the art video card. Planned OS obsolescence sucks and Ms deserves to take a dive.
Xithras (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 04:03 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. Apple really isn't any better in the obsolescence department.
IIRC, Apple is working on the seventh release of OSX as we speak. Apple also has a nasty and notorious habit of refusing to make new features available for earlier releases as a way to force people to purchase those newer versions. I remember the flap over Apple's refusal to patch cover flow into the iPod video's a couple of years ago, and Jobs response was simply, "When Apple releases a product, it's done. If you want the new feature, buy the new system."
This came despite the fact that Apples own internal developers have admitted that the 60/80 gb video iPod's shared the same underlying hardware and firmware as the newer iPods and that the feature could be implemented "in under 15 minutes". Keeping existing customers happy took a backseat to driving new sales.
That was the moment when I decided that my Mini wouldn't be replaced.
Grinchie (470 posts) Tue Dec-02-08 04:42 PM
Response to Reply #13
18. How timely, Windows losing Market Share, and Intel promoting ESP
I used to be a real Microsoft enthusiast. Writing software for the Platform was easy and relatively painless. Then Microsoft decided that it needed to follow the Automotive industry of planned obsolescence in order to drive annual growth.
They started down the path od annual upgrades that exponentially doubled the number of uprgrades, patches and bug fixes required to keep a system running optimally. Then, when growth stopped in the consumer sector, they starting bleeding the Developers that put them on top by charging for tools and information that was once free. They also turned MSCE into a money making channel that initiated a worldwide glut of training centers who now had control of who would work for who, generally driving out the innovators and the researchers that saw through the MSCE title as nothing more that Rote learning and another name for exclusionary licensing practices. Not to mention the addition thousands of dollars wringed out of professionals while at the same time their jobs were being shipped off shore.
We trained the H1-B's how to think with real world logic and they promptly grew tired of the American dream and went back home with all of their knowledge, only to start up companies like Tata and Infosys, which actively courted american corporations with the seductive promise of low labor costs.
I was looking at Intel Corporation today, researching their current trends after seeing their stock at an all time low of about 12 bucks.
I used to work there, and I have a great admiration for the smart people that work their. However, it appears that Intel has lost its way, and is trapped in the rampant Consumerism and Planned Obsolescence model like Microsoft.
One of their current research efforts is ESP or Environmentally Sensitive Computing. Some of the examples they use are being able to identify a particular individual by the way they handle a TV remote, using accellerometers and other sensors to gather real world information for machine recognition.
I cannot tell you how invasive this technology could become, coupled with the already disturbing push to use RFID tags everywhere, including the small farmers dozen or so chickens if he ever wanted to sell them at the market.
I still use Windows XP, and I was one of the 380,000 people that petitioned Microsoft to keep XP alive and fix it, instead of scrapping it for new, untested drivers, written in some boiler room in Mumbai for devices that were never seen there before 5 years ago.
The lack of accountability in todays Corporate world is incredibly worrisome, and it pervades every major investment we deal with, where it be consumer electronics, Automobiles, Water Supply, and most insidiously Insurance companies, which apparently can change their policies at will, and then refuse to discuss it with you, because they can't explain it themselves.
MS and Intel are on the same path as GM, and although they did not kill the Electric Car like GM did, they are well of their way of becoming obsolete in this crisis of confidence that Technology makes our lives better. It can, but today the enormous resources of computing are exploited by the Corporations and mass media to dumb down the Sheeple.
CRF450 (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 11:06 PM
Response to Reply #13
29. Planned OS obsolescence? WTF?
Most of that was not Windows fault, 3rd party software makers were draggin their asses pretty slow to make compatable software and updates for older hardware when they should have been ready and reliable from the start. Thats not an issue anymore now as new software and hardware products are compatible. I have Vista SP1 64bit on a 4 month old laptop, and a newly built gaming computer, no big issues what so ever. My dad also has Vista and it hasent given him any problems either.
It does have a slight decrease in gaming performance over XP but why complain about that? Games are still playing smoothly on a properly built pc with Vista.
LanternWaste (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 04:10 PM
Response to Original message
16. Under 90%-- a new low...
Under 90%-- a new low. That seems an almost absurd statement (although I realize it's not).
To me, it's akin to saying, "This news JUST in... Generalissimo Fransisco Franco is still dead..."
HopeHoops (829 posts) Tue Dec-02-08 04:17 PM
Response to Original message
17. Sometime around 1987 or so, there were more C=64 boxes in use than all other PCs combined.
Sigh.
TommyO (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 04:50 PM
Response to Reply #17
19. Those were the days!
I went through a Vic-20, a C=64, a C=128 (running GEOS), an Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000, a slew of Windows machines, and now my nearly three-year old PowerMac G5.
Ah, the memories (and memory), along with umpteen thousand dollars spent.
bemildred (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 06:25 PM
Response to Original message
22. Yay for competition. Monopoly is bad for consumers.
Yeah, monopoly's not great, but neither is one-party dominance of blue cities and blue states.
bitchkitty (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 07:32 PM
Response to Original message
26. Good - people should have more choices.
I'd love to see Mac becoming more popular. I'm tired of sites that only work on a Windoze OS, i.e. Netflix.
Mac rocks for CS3. There is no comparison.
TrogL (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-02-08 08:58 PM
Response to Original message
28. We have Vista at the office. Ooooooooh what a nightmare
I haven't had a PC lock up like that since Windows 3.1.
robcon (1000+ posts) Wed Dec-03-08 10:52 AM
Response to Original message
33. I'm in the 89.6% majority.
I just got a new Windows machine with Vista.
So far, so good. Big improvement over my previous old, slow computer.
I dunno; I have no opinion on the matter.
I learned using Apple, but a couple of years later started using Microsoft.
I have no idea why; things just happen, and I take them as they come.
I don't recall that one had any particular advantage over the other, excepting that I don't like Apple's mice. One time I did a slew of accounting work for a local photography place, which used Apple. That mouse was the stupidest, most ridiculous, thing I'd ever seen since Walter Mundane ran for president, or since Helen Thomas blew her nose.
But on the whole, Apple, Microsoft, whatever. Whatever's on the table here is fine.
Of course, I don't demand a whole lot. Unlike the primitives, I don't use a computer to vaccuum the living-room floor, to watch television, to feed the cats, to hang out the laundry to dry, to change the air in the tires of the automobile, and whatever else the primitives DEMAND their computer do.
