Windows 8 Increased Its Market Share in December

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Yeah, well of course it increased its market share. Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. Vista was kind of Microsoft's low point and at its peak it was 16-18% and considered a failure. We have at least a year or two before we can fully say whether or not it's a success or failure.

While it's not surprising to see Surface as the most popular Windows 8 product it IS surprising to see that it accounts for less that one one-hundreth of the Windows 8 market share. Microsoft put a lot of effort into developing it and although it's a phenomenal device it's sales are likely heavily impacted by its price. People were expecting a $299-$399 price at launch. The $500 price tag ($600+ with the TouchCover) is a huge reason the device isn't in more users' hands. Microsoft needs market share to generate revenue on these devices and lower prices would have brought that from the beginning. Price cuts now will bring in more users but there's no point in dropping prices after everyone already got their iPads and Android tablets for the holidays.

TL;DR: Surface costs too much and Microsoft missed the boat on market share as a result.

I wonder what 2% of the share is for the mobile market and also which portion of desktop users jumped from vista right to Win 8 bypassing Win 7 (and probably XP) in the process.

is microsoft still rolling out windows 7 or are they only windows 8 now?

if they are only windows 8, its not a surprise...
but if they also still offer 7, as in pressing new coppies and keys... than im shocked.

now you will know 8 is a failure if the downgrade to 7 is called an upgrade even when you are buying the pc.

With Windows 8 being the only option available for new PCs, then this is pretty much expected. Although if manufacturers still offered the option for Windows 7 instead, then this number would definitely be lower.

The problem is , MSFT built a soild platform called win7.

I have runned win7 for over 2 years without major patches and repairs

The OSX decline made me happy

Windows 8 is only gaining shares because, well, you can't buy a PC from a store without have Windows 8 preloaded on it anymore.

Even myself in a IT field, it gets harder every day to buy a Windows 7 box from our vendors. Everyone is being forced to go to Windows 8.

@sporkimus

Agreed completely.

WTF?
These comments sound like a bunch of blind guys trying to lead another bunch of blind guys.

What is your insightful comment then?

I don't know what you are smoking, but Dell still sells laptops with Windows 7:

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/laptops#!facets=80770~0~1791344&p=1

You can still buy Windows 7 direct from Microsoft's store if you want:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/list/parentCategoryID.44066700/categoryID.60521000

And of course you can buy a new "White Box" PC from a local system builder and use an old copy of Windows pretty much forever.

Dear Microsoft, as a T1 Distributor, I still sell a hundred and fifty thousand copies of Windows 7, before I have to force a single copy of Winblows 8 onto a poor sap. I suggest you grow a pair, and recall that software, make a stand! You will regain integrity. Windows 8 is an absolute disgrace, and an insult to a user interface.

... it is forced on by vendors and M$, not chosen by customers...

Maybe Samsung should make an OS for pc... >_>

People bought computers as presents, and all of the new computers come with Windows 8. They didn't switch to Windows 8 voluntarily. Anecdotally, I've also been hearing from people who did end up with a Windows 8 computer that they hate it. I haven't run into very many who like it.

Damn it, its just the interface! Just the shell.
The improvements done in a technical level are very decent, but damn it the interface!

Im torn, dude. In the meantime, Win7 is the king for me.

Wow, those Windows 8 usage numbers are terrible!! I knew it was bad, but I didn't think it was that bad!! The usage is considerably worse than when Vista was released and Vista cost 5X-10X more than Win8 -- 1.77 percent ... up 60%, but 60% of nothing is still nothing.

I realize this article was trying to make a positive "spin" for Microsoft (they do NEED all the help they can get), but it has sadly only made the grim picture of Windows 8 usage even worse.

As far as Apple's OSX numbers going down ... so what? Apple couldn't care less about OSX when they have iOS.

And finally, overall Windows market share (usage) is NOT 91.74% - not even close -- it's around 78-79% http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomb=*1 and out of all versions of Windows, Windows 8 is 1.87% and Windows 8 Touch 0.06%. Global market share of Windows 8 and Touch is 1.45%. As has been pointed out 1.87% is most likely all from NEW computer sales with pre-installed Windows 8. There can be no bigger failure of adoption in the history of Microsoft than Windows 8.

The real important Question Tom's "should be" asking, but doesn't "so what's next?" Will Ballmer be voted out of Microsoft? Will Microsoft admit failure and get back on track? Will all those supporting vendors/partners of Microsoft leave or seek some type of legal action (a LOT of companies have spent a fortune ramping up production which Microsoft promised was going to be a win for them)? Why isn't Tom's asking the hard questions and/or trying to find out what's really going on internally at Microsoft ... is there going to be an executive shuffle? Some execs have already left/fired, so who's next? And finally, get some information on how Microsoft plan to proceed with Windows 9? Isn't that what Journalists are supposed to do? Or has your integrity been compromised by conflicts of interest from advertising dollars from Microsoft and it's supporting vendors/partners?

Microsoft has successfully pissed off just about everyone from consumers, to software developers, to vendors/partners.

I feel like I'm the only one who actually likes windows8. It definitely needs more work though. My single biggest annoyance is you cannot create tiles natively. You must download a 3rd party program such as Oblytile to add this feature. Once you do that the metro UI is infinitely more useful. I use it as a fullscreen start button.
Here is a picture of my current metro UI... http://i48.tinypic.com/2d91sv7.jpg

I am sure that the Windows 8 market share will also go up in January as well by a similar amount. However in February I expect that there will be little or no increase in the market share as Windows 8 goes on sale at the full price.