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That's the same year that Mac OS X 10.0 was released. In fact,
OS X 10.1 was released one month after XP was released to
manufacturers and one month before it was available at retail.
OS X 10.2 came out 11 months later, and 14 months later 10.3
arrived. Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the oldest version that still has a
good following, arrived 1-1/2 years after that and remained the current
version of the Mac OS for 2-1/2 years.
OS X 10.5 Leopard, the last version to support PowerPC Macs, came to
market in October 2007, and 10.6 Snow Leopard, the first Intel-only
version, arrived on August 2009.
That's five major releases since late 2001, compared with two for
Windows - Vista (released to OEMs in November 2006 and to retail in
January 2007) and Windows 7 (released to manufacturers in July 2009 and
to the consumer in October 2009).
Operating System Shares
Let's look at some more statistics.
NetMarketshare posts
monthly usage statistics for operating systems. Their latest data
(June 2010) puts Windows at 91.46%, Macs at 5.16%, Linux at 1.07%, iOS
devices at 0.88%, and everything else behind that. They further break
this down
by OS versions:
Windows XP, 62.43% (entire market, not just business PCs)
Windows Vista, 14.68%
Windows 7, 13.70%
Mac OS X 10.6, 2.47%
Mac OS X 10.5, 1.90%
Mac OS X 10.4, 0.64%
If we subdivide each OS by version, we discover that XP has over 68%
of the Windows market, followed by Vista at 16% and Windows 7 at 15%.
Looking at their
trend graph, we see that XP has declined by roughly 10% over the
past 11 months, Vista has lost over 20% of its users, and Windows 7 is
on the ascendant, going from less than 1% a year ago to 15% of the
Windows market today.
On the Mac side, OS X 10.6 now had 48% of the user base, followed by
10.5 at just under 37%. Good old Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger has a little
more than 12% of the Mac market. Looking at trends, nearly half of
Leopard users have moved to Snow Leopard over the past year. Tiger
doesn't even make the trend graph.
Another Interesting Statistic
While Windows XP, nearly nine years old, dominates the PC market,
the average business PC running it is 4.4 years old. If that is
correct, it means that nearly half of the business PCs in use are
capable of running Vista - which means that they are also capable of
running Windows 7, which has
lower hardware requirements than Vista.
Based on what I've read, Windows 7 is a serious improvement in every
respect, and it's become Microsoft's best selling software ever. But it
seems to be going primarily to new PC buyers and Vista users longing
for something better. It's impact on the XP installed base is going to
come more from it being today's default OS, so when old hardware is
replaced, Windows 7 is what comes with the new machine.
The World of IT
Information technology departments are inherently conservative: They
like what they know, resist change, and fear the unknown.
When I worked in IT, we used Macs throughout the company because
computers had come into the workplace through the design department. We
had one Windows PC for software testing when I left there in 2001, and
the marketing department had convinced management that they had to use
Windows, because that's what "real" businesses used. I didn't know
Windows - still don't - and happily left before the switch. And before
the malware infections.
Most IT departments are wed to Windows, and they will continue to
use what they know for as long as they can. Vista was widely panned,
making them even less likely to consider migrating to Windows 7. Stick
with what you know and keep the other platforms (Linux, Macs, and iOS
devices) at bay.
Interestingly, Microsoft knows on which side its bread is buttered,
and according to several reports on the Web this week, the company will
continue to allow Windows XP downgrades, although it no longer sells
Windows XP licenses. This means that the IT conservatives can keep
using what they know for years to come - perhaps as much as a decade -
before being forced to use something newer and better on new PCs.
The Mac World
Microsoft has brought this state on itself. Windows itself is an
inherently conservative operating system, designed to run old software
on old hardware. And because Microsoft isn't a PC maker, manufacturers
have no incentive to lock people into a newer version of Windows.
On the Mac side, the opposite prevails. Any Mac introduced in the
past year will run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and nothing older. If you
want the latest hardware, you have no choice but to use the latest
operating system.
Apple has been doing this since 1986, when the Mac Plus shipped with System 3.2.
With very few exceptions, that has been the case ever since - new
hardware would run no Mac OS older than the one it shipped with.
Where Microsoft is only interested in selling software and doesn't
care if you downgrade to a nearly-decade-old operating system, Apple
wants to give you the best possible experience on your new Mac. No
Tiger. No Leopard, unless you're buying the long-in-tooth Mac Pro or MacBook Air. Just Snow
Leopard.
As in the Windows world, you can run a newer operating system on
older hardware up to a point. Most G3 Macs will run Tiger, and most G4
Macs will run Leopard, the last version to support G4 and G5 CPUs. And
every Intel-based Mac can run Snow Leopard.
This explains the big difference in operating system shares between
Windows, where a positively ancient OS (with three service packs)
continues to dominate, and Macs, where an OS version less than a year
old already has nearly half of the installed base.
If Microsoft could do the same thing, Apple might not have passed
Microsoft's market capitalization. But that's the price it pays for
being a software company.
Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986,
sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and
has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
Links for the Day
Mac of the Day: Performa 630, introduced 1994.07.01. The first desktop Mac with an IDE hard drive could accept a TV or radio tuner.
