7 ms·

Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 pass 10% market share, Windows XP falls below 30%

79 points by hackhackhack 13y ago

bhauer 13y ago
I've been using my new Dell Venue Pro 8 (Windows 8.1) on the holiday break and although I've found technology boring for the past two years, I found myself quite enjoying this new little tablet. Now, if only Windows 8.2 or 9 focused some needed attention on large form-factor ("desktop"), I'd be very happy.
- ericcumbee 13y ago
  I've enjoyed my Surface Pro 2. Windows 8 is quite nice on proper hardware. It's nice to have a full blown computer in something that is heavier and bigger than an ipad, but not terribly so much heavier.
  - rottyguy 13y ago
    How is the sp2 on the lap? I like laying on the couch and surf and concerned with the stability of the sp2 in this position.
    - Spearchucker 13y ago
      It's great, although I only ever use the kickstand on a desk. The most frustrating things with the Pro 2? The continuous oscillation between needing the keyboard attached and needing to take it off again, which is difficult with one hand. Also while the type keyboard is excellent in use, my two-year old managed to pry a key loose in seconds. Said key is lost in the meantime. Other than that it's the best non-desktop device I've ever owned.
    - ericcumbee 13y ago
      I've not really tried it much in that position.
- ethana 13y ago
  I couldn't decide whether or not to get the DVP8 or the Nexus 7, so I got both. Finding myself grabbing the DVP8 most of the time for for IE metro...yea...It has flash support and a much better mobile browsing. Better than any browser on Android anyway.
  - gum_ina_package 13y ago
    I'm amazed at how good Modern IE is. Probably the best mobile browser experience I've ever had.
- brudgers 13y ago
  I've been using Windows 8 on the desktop for over a year. It's better than Windows 7 - switching between start screen and desktop is just a left thumb keypress...and the start screen (or some Windows 8 app) only shows up on one of my monitors, and I can toss that screen back and forth between monitors depending on which part of the desktop I want to see. And that's gotten better with Windows 8.1.
- ewoodrich 13y ago
  I have a Nexus 7 and iPad, but for a replacement to an older netbook, purchased an Asus Transformer t100. It's a <$400 10" convertible tablet (it includes a keyboard dock, and can function well in either tablet or laptop configuration.) It's quickly become my favorite device, and I love the "full-desktop" power of Windows 8.1 combined with the dock for traditional apps. The only gripe I have is the dearth of Metro apps on the Windows App store. 1st party apps from Microsoft tend to be very usable, but the few 3rd party apps I've tried have clearly been a halfhearted port, and tend to be very buggy. To echo an above poster, Modern IE is surprisingly great, with the exception of sometimes jaggedy text rendering at smaller sizes (anyone else experience this?) All in all, I've gotten far more value than I expected both from the price and Windows 8.1 itself.
- barista 13y ago
  I got one myself the other day and am amazed how neat the device is. Great capabilities and great battery life. Love the ability to use it with usb keyboard/mouse once in a while. I wish there was a standard micro-usb based dock for all these windows tablets popping up.
- Joeri 13y ago
  I picked up the asus t100, and am finding myself using that instead of my ipad. It's nice that you can run everything, and view anything, while still having a couch-friendly tablet interface for browsing and reading. It frustrates me now to use my regular laptop and not have a touch screen. Windows 8 makes a lot more sense when you use it on a device it was designed for. Even one of the staunch anti-8 coworkers at my office had to admit the t100 was nice to use. It's also amazing how fast the bay trail atom is, yesterday i was playing mirror's edge on it :)
- blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
  I can't help but think that if there was a Venue Pro 8 with a decent dock so that you could use it as a desktop and take it to a meeting as a tablet would be just a no-brainer for corporate IT shops. I can't count the number of times I have seem someone running between meeting rooms balancing their laptop like a waitress running through a restaurant with a huge tray above her head. So, maybe a thunderbolt port for docking?
  - Paradigma11 13y ago
    They have the Venue 11 pro for that: http://www.engadget.com/products/dell/venue/11-pro/ http://www.engadget.com/products/dell/venue/11-pro/
  - emp_ 13y ago
    Being from the enterprise world I concur. The short-term advancement I am looking forward is having my ipad mini and macbook air be a single core that can be docked a la Atrix and also become a full blown desktop on a dock a la surface 2 with gaming capabilities. Having it on a phone-size would be the next step but the 7 inch screen is so much better for reading.
  - ericcumbee 13y ago
    There is the thinkpad Tablet 2 it has a docking station but I honestly find the build quality and functionality to be questionable at best. It also had issues connecting to my workplace wifi, I attributed it to Windows 8 but my colleagues surface pro did not have the same problems.
yogo 13y ago
The movie Hard to Kill should be remade about Windows XP and IE6 :)
- melling 13y ago
  If you throw out China, IE6 looks like it's mostly gone. http://www.modern.ie/ie6countdown#map http://www.modern.ie/ie6countdown#map I'm sure there a few corporate holdouts (and South Korea), but I'm sure many people here can finally say goodbye. The link at the bottom discussed the current browser numbers. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/01/02/ie11-triples-market-share-10-42-firefox-slips-bit-chrome-gains-back-share/#!q6O8U http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/01/02/ie11-triples-market... IE7 is pretty much gone too. Now it's IE8-IE11+ for the next 3-5 years.
  - ancarda 13y ago
    Is there an IE 8 countdown?
    - zsiciarz 13y ago
      Closest I could find. http://theie8countdown.com/ http://theie8countdown.com/
- taspeotis 13y ago
  IE6 is pretty much dead. It's IE8 that won't die.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    Do anyone know the percentages of the split between XP/Vista/7 in the IE8 population?
    - taspeotis 13y ago
      Here's what I have from about 6 months of Google Analytics. This is a line-of-business web application. GA is only on the login page. Visits 5,645 % of Total: 4.25% (132,872) XP: 62.37% 7: 35.57% Vista: 1.52% Server 2003: 0.53% That Windows 7 number scares me a bit.
rdtsc 13y ago
Does "Linux" include Android and ChromeOS? One of my relatives got a Chrombook. two others got Android tablets. Other family got two new Android Moto G smartphones. Out of say 30 people I don't know anyone who got a new windows phone, tablet or desktop.
- kenjackson 13y ago
  I think it safe to say that your day to day observations won't line up with the general public.
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    That goes without saying, it was just personal example, but the question about where Android fits in on the chart still stands.
    - throwawaykf03 13y ago
      The Network Applications page from which TFA claims to have gotten its numbers is titled "desktop operating system market share", so I'm guessing Android is not covered (though Chromebooks might be).
- w-ll 13y ago
  I got a surface pro 2 and am very surprised at how much I enjoy it. Playing games like Myst off of Steam blew me away. And this might sound crazy... but IE 11 is my default browser. Chrome is almost unusable on it but IE works great. Again, Very Surprised at how awesome it is. It's a tablet size computer, NOT a tablet sized phone.
  - Offler 13y ago
    I think Firefox has been Metro optimized.
    - w-ll 13y ago
      I haven't tried a Metro version but the latest FF in desktop mode doesn't have support for basic touch screen gestures, and doesn't support the stylus. Same with Chrome, but Chrome will outright freeze on pages that so far looks like some weird scroll configs (gmail after opening a few messages freezes) IE 11 has at least basic gesture support, pinch-zoom, gravity scrolling (whatever its called). But what I really love is using the stylus, and IE treats that as mouse input, so you get hover, click, etc..
p4bl0 13y ago
It's amazing to me that it is news that an OS which was released 13 years ago is now passing under 30% of market share.
- yuhong 13y ago
  And it is only 3 months away from out of support.
- ams6110 13y ago
  It still does what most people need.
- kyberias 13y ago
  Ummm... no. The "news" is that it still has that 30% market share after 13 years ago and soon going to be unsupported.
  - p4bl0 13y ago
    > it still has that 30% market share Yes, that is what I implied.
- dageshi 13y ago
  If mostly all you do is fire up a browser to use the web then there's pretty much no reason to upgrade from XP, I'd expect there's a lot of machines out there which essentially fall into that use case, why spend money on something for no appreciable gain?
  - userbinator 13y ago
    And post-XP a lot of things which used to be there and provided a "good experience" to some users are gone, so some things are more of a loss than a gain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Win... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Win... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Win... And you might be surprised how many are still using 2K or 98SE, whole communities have developed around providing further patches and improvements. OSs that are "dead" in the mainstream continue on as things approach more of the "retro" community... (I'm still using XP, haven't needed more than that. Will likely still use it even after MS stops support. I also regularly used 98SE up until around '08, then I dual-booted with XP until '10.)
Camillo 13y ago
Were 30% of people really buying Windows XP machines last year? I think they meant "usage share" rather than "market share".
- harshreality 13y ago
  Thanks for that. I've just acquired a new pet peeve: not only is "market share" not "usage share", but usage share is not the same as web usage which is all web analytics can measure.
digitailor 13y ago
Does anyone know what the correlation is between the rapidly decreasing WinXP market share and the size of the large botnet pools?
guillemsola 13y ago
But this netstat thing is only taking into account those computers with Internet usage. Would the amount of corporate, administration, financial... computers limited to intranet usage be long enough to modify this graphic?
- bluedino 13y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if XP's share increased. Most of the desktops at a large healthcare company we had as a client were still running IE6.
  - ericcumbee 13y ago
    If that is the case, Windows XP share will drop rapidly over the next few months. When MS ends support for XP it will no longer be in compliance with HIPPA.
    - guillemsola 13y ago
      Not all have to fulfill the hippa. For instance I know one of the greatest stores chain in my country that is still using win2k. Good OS by the way XD...
      - ericcumbee 13y ago
        No,but the parent mentioned healthcare.
quattrofan 13y ago
I wonder where Chrome sits in this.
tristanperry 13y ago
I think a bigger story from these statistics is the rise in Linux: "while Linux gained 0.17 percentage points (to 1.73 percent)" Going from 1.56% to 1.73% is an ~11% increase, which is a pretty large rise (albeit from a smaller base) Meanwhile, XP's "huge" drop was 7%. Which is a fair drop, but I wouldn't call it huge. Seeing this rise in Linux is promising.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- roel_v 13y ago
  What's this, 2002? Is 2014 really going to be the Year Of Linux On The Desktop?
  - TorKlingberg 13y ago
    Is it necessary to be snarky like this in every thread that mentions Linux?
    - roel_v 13y ago
      Well I guess it depends on what threshold you set for 'necessary', but man I've been hearing this nonsense since 1999 - actually I preached it myself back then. And just like former smokers are the most obnoxious anti-smoking crusaders, every time I see a comment like the GP I roll my eyes and feel the need to warn others to not fall into the same cult-like thinking I did back then.
  - jol 13y ago
    because of network effects that will kick in when Linux finally reaches market share that has to be respected (I expect that to be somewhere close to 10 %), this is much more important. And now when Steam came to linux, that can be kickstarted, thus never say never :)
    - simonh 13y ago
      Linux has something like 60% of the mobile market already. I'm perfectly serious, the cognitive dissonance that fact causes in Linux desktop enthusiasts is very revealing. If 'Linux' ever gets anywhere on the desktop, it will be one 'distro' (I prefer to call them Operating Systems) running one desktop environment with one primary application development framework that does so. That's because that fact that Linux has anything to do with Android, or FirefoxOS, or Ubuntu Mobile is basically irrelevant. What actually matters is the UI layer and the development framework. That's why the fragmentation in Linux distros has killed any chance of Linux taking over the desktop. It's because the things that actually matter - desktop frameworks and development environments - are where the main fragmentation lies. For desktop dominance it's that desktop layer that has to be as unified, robust and compatible as possible.
lucb1e 13y ago
Slow news day?
ecesena 13y ago
I like the Windows 8 UX pretty much. I feel very comfortable with the horizontal scroll which is, imho, totally natural and in some sense more effective than the vertical scroll we got used because of smartphones. Perhaps we're crazy, but at Theneeds we believed in Windows 8 and we released our app [1] even before iOS and Android... let's see what happens ;) [1] http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/theneeds/9e1d48a5-8c46-4723-ba46-9fc9cd6a8464 http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/theneeds/9e1d48a...
- apapli 13y ago
  Hey, that looks great. When I'm near my windows 8 computer I'll be sure to give it a spin!
  - ecesena 13y ago
    Thanks. Let me have your feedback!
- johnward 13y ago
  I tried it on my desktop for a few weeks but I just couldn't handle it. It was really a terrible experience for me. I could see how it would work on tablets though. I went back to Windows 7 and probably won't upgrade again.
  - ecesena 13y ago
    I see. In fact I was mainly thinking to tablets and a "mostly-read" experience.
thedawn 13y ago
Very interesting. I think that Win8 is much much better to use especially when you have a touch screen.
iamthepieman 13y ago
If you're a developer and use Windows for any reason then Windows 8.1 is a huge improvement over previous Microsoft operating systems. Only Windows 2000 compares. The built in type-1 hypervisor alone is worth the upgrade. Hyper-V is faster than virtual-box and other is becoming a real competitor to VMWare and Citrix products.
- adventureloop 13y ago
  Maybe, but 8.1 killed all of our VS2005 projects. If you are a developer that doesn't want to do upgrades on potentially fragile build files it is not a god send.

79 points by hackhackhack 13y ago

I've been using my new Dell Venue Pro 8 (Windows 8.1) on the holiday break and although I've found technology boring for the past two years, I found myself quite enjoying this new little tablet. Now, if only Windows 8.2 or 9 focused some needed attention on large form-factor ("desktop"), I'd be very happy.

ericcumbee 13y ago
I've enjoyed my Surface Pro 2. Windows 8 is quite nice on proper hardware. It's nice to have a full blown computer in something that is heavier and bigger than an ipad, but not terribly so much heavier.
- rottyguy 13y ago
  How is the sp2 on the lap? I like laying on the couch and surf and concerned with the stability of the sp2 in this position.
  - Spearchucker 13y ago
    It's great, although I only ever use the kickstand on a desk. The most frustrating things with the Pro 2? The continuous oscillation between needing the keyboard attached and needing to take it off again, which is difficult with one hand. Also while the type keyboard is excellent in use, my two-year old managed to pry a key loose in seconds. Said key is lost in the meantime. Other than that it's the best non-desktop device I've ever owned.
  - ericcumbee 13y ago
    I've not really tried it much in that position.
ethana 13y ago
I couldn't decide whether or not to get the DVP8 or the Nexus 7, so I got both. Finding myself grabbing the DVP8 most of the time for for IE metro...yea...It has flash support and a much better mobile browsing. Better than any browser on Android anyway.
- gum_ina_package 13y ago
  I'm amazed at how good Modern IE is. Probably the best mobile browser experience I've ever had.
brudgers 13y ago
I've been using Windows 8 on the desktop for over a year. It's better than Windows 7 - switching between start screen and desktop is just a left thumb keypress...and the start screen (or some Windows 8 app) only shows up on one of my monitors, and I can toss that screen back and forth between monitors depending on which part of the desktop I want to see. And that's gotten better with Windows 8.1.
ewoodrich 13y ago
I have a Nexus 7 and iPad, but for a replacement to an older netbook, purchased an Asus Transformer t100. It's a <$400 10" convertible tablet (it includes a keyboard dock, and can function well in either tablet or laptop configuration.) It's quickly become my favorite device, and I love the "full-desktop" power of Windows 8.1 combined with the dock for traditional apps. The only gripe I have is the dearth of Metro apps on the Windows App store. 1st party apps from Microsoft tend to be very usable, but the few 3rd party apps I've tried have clearly been a halfhearted port, and tend to be very buggy. To echo an above poster, Modern IE is surprisingly great, with the exception of sometimes jaggedy text rendering at smaller sizes (anyone else experience this?) All in all, I've gotten far more value than I expected both from the price and Windows 8.1 itself.
barista 13y ago
I got one myself the other day and am amazed how neat the device is. Great capabilities and great battery life. Love the ability to use it with usb keyboard/mouse once in a while. I wish there was a standard micro-usb based dock for all these windows tablets popping up.
Joeri 13y ago
I picked up the asus t100, and am finding myself using that instead of my ipad. It's nice that you can run everything, and view anything, while still having a couch-friendly tablet interface for browsing and reading. It frustrates me now to use my regular laptop and not have a touch screen. Windows 8 makes a lot more sense when you use it on a device it was designed for. Even one of the staunch anti-8 coworkers at my office had to admit the t100 was nice to use. It's also amazing how fast the bay trail atom is, yesterday i was playing mirror's edge on it :)
blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
I can't help but think that if there was a Venue Pro 8 with a decent dock so that you could use it as a desktop and take it to a meeting as a tablet would be just a no-brainer for corporate IT shops. I can't count the number of times I have seem someone running between meeting rooms balancing their laptop like a waitress running through a restaurant with a huge tray above her head. So, maybe a thunderbolt port for docking?
- Paradigma11 13y ago
  They have the Venue 11 pro for that: http://www.engadget.com/products/dell/venue/11-pro/ http://www.engadget.com/products/dell/venue/11-pro/
- emp_ 13y ago
  Being from the enterprise world I concur. The short-term advancement I am looking forward is having my ipad mini and macbook air be a single core that can be docked a la Atrix and also become a full blown desktop on a dock a la surface 2 with gaming capabilities. Having it on a phone-size would be the next step but the 7 inch screen is so much better for reading.
- ericcumbee 13y ago
  There is the thinkpad Tablet 2 it has a docking station but I honestly find the build quality and functionality to be questionable at best. It also had issues connecting to my workplace wifi, I attributed it to Windows 8 but my colleagues surface pro did not have the same problems.

yogo 13y ago

The movie Hard to Kill should be remade about Windows XP and IE6 :)

melling 13y ago
If you throw out China, IE6 looks like it's mostly gone. http://www.modern.ie/ie6countdown#map http://www.modern.ie/ie6countdown#map I'm sure there a few corporate holdouts (and South Korea), but I'm sure many people here can finally say goodbye. The link at the bottom discussed the current browser numbers. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/01/02/ie11-triples-market-share-10-42-firefox-slips-bit-chrome-gains-back-share/#!q6O8U http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/01/02/ie11-triples-market... IE7 is pretty much gone too. Now it's IE8-IE11+ for the next 3-5 years.
- ancarda 13y ago
  Is there an IE 8 countdown?
  - zsiciarz 13y ago
    Closest I could find. http://theie8countdown.com/ http://theie8countdown.com/
taspeotis 13y ago
IE6 is pretty much dead. It's IE8 that won't die.
- yuhong 13y ago
  Do anyone know the percentages of the split between XP/Vista/7 in the IE8 population?
  - taspeotis 13y ago
    Here's what I have from about 6 months of Google Analytics. This is a line-of-business web application. GA is only on the login page. Visits 5,645 % of Total: 4.25% (132,872) XP: 62.37% 7: 35.57% Vista: 1.52% Server 2003: 0.53% That Windows 7 number scares me a bit.

rdtsc 13y ago

Does "Linux" include Android and ChromeOS? One of my relatives got a Chrombook. two others got Android tablets. Other family got two new Android Moto G smartphones. Out of say 30 people I don't know anyone who got a new windows phone, tablet or desktop.

kenjackson 13y ago
I think it safe to say that your day to day observations won't line up with the general public.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  That goes without saying, it was just personal example, but the question about where Android fits in on the chart still stands.
  - throwawaykf03 13y ago
    The Network Applications page from which TFA claims to have gotten its numbers is titled "desktop operating system market share", so I'm guessing Android is not covered (though Chromebooks might be).
w-ll 13y ago
I got a surface pro 2 and am very surprised at how much I enjoy it. Playing games like Myst off of Steam blew me away. And this might sound crazy... but IE 11 is my default browser. Chrome is almost unusable on it but IE works great. Again, Very Surprised at how awesome it is. It's a tablet size computer, NOT a tablet sized phone.
- Offler 13y ago
  I think Firefox has been Metro optimized.
  - w-ll 13y ago
    I haven't tried a Metro version but the latest FF in desktop mode doesn't have support for basic touch screen gestures, and doesn't support the stylus. Same with Chrome, but Chrome will outright freeze on pages that so far looks like some weird scroll configs (gmail after opening a few messages freezes) IE 11 has at least basic gesture support, pinch-zoom, gravity scrolling (whatever its called). But what I really love is using the stylus, and IE treats that as mouse input, so you get hover, click, etc..

p4bl0 13y ago

It's amazing to me that it is news that an OS which was released 13 years ago is now passing under 30% of market share.

yuhong 13y ago
And it is only 3 months away from out of support.
ams6110 13y ago
It still does what most people need.
kyberias 13y ago
Ummm... no. The "news" is that it still has that 30% market share after 13 years ago and soon going to be unsupported.
- p4bl0 13y ago
  > it still has that 30% market share Yes, that is what I implied.
dageshi 13y ago
If mostly all you do is fire up a browser to use the web then there's pretty much no reason to upgrade from XP, I'd expect there's a lot of machines out there which essentially fall into that use case, why spend money on something for no appreciable gain?
- userbinator 13y ago
  And post-XP a lot of things which used to be there and provided a "good experience" to some users are gone, so some things are more of a loss than a gain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Win... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Win... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Win... And you might be surprised how many are still using 2K or 98SE, whole communities have developed around providing further patches and improvements. OSs that are "dead" in the mainstream continue on as things approach more of the "retro" community... (I'm still using XP, haven't needed more than that. Will likely still use it even after MS stops support. I also regularly used 98SE up until around '08, then I dual-booted with XP until '10.)

Camillo 13y ago

Were 30% of people really buying Windows XP machines last year? I think they meant "usage share" rather than "market share".

harshreality 13y ago
Thanks for that. I've just acquired a new pet peeve: not only is "market share" not "usage share", but usage share is not the same as web usage which is all web analytics can measure.

digitailor 13y ago

Does anyone know what the correlation is between the rapidly decreasing WinXP market share and the size of the large botnet pools?

guillemsola 13y ago

But this netstat thing is only taking into account those computers with Internet usage. Would the amount of corporate, administration, financial... computers limited to intranet usage be long enough to modify this graphic?

bluedino 13y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if XP's share increased. Most of the desktops at a large healthcare company we had as a client were still running IE6.
- ericcumbee 13y ago
  If that is the case, Windows XP share will drop rapidly over the next few months. When MS ends support for XP it will no longer be in compliance with HIPPA.
  - guillemsola 13y ago
    Not all have to fulfill the hippa. For instance I know one of the greatest stores chain in my country that is still using win2k. Good OS by the way XD...
    - ericcumbee 13y ago
      No,but the parent mentioned healthcare.

quattrofan 13y ago

I wonder where Chrome sits in this.

tristanperry 13y ago

I think a bigger story from these statistics is the rise in Linux: "while Linux gained 0.17 percentage points (to 1.73 percent)" Going from 1.56% to 1.73% is an ~11% increase, which is a pretty large rise (albeit from a smaller base) Meanwhile, XP's "huge" drop was 7%. Which is a fair drop, but I wouldn't call it huge. Seeing this rise in Linux is promising.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
roel_v 13y ago
What's this, 2002? Is 2014 really going to be the Year Of Linux On The Desktop?
- TorKlingberg 13y ago
  Is it necessary to be snarky like this in every thread that mentions Linux?
  - roel_v 13y ago
    Well I guess it depends on what threshold you set for 'necessary', but man I've been hearing this nonsense since 1999 - actually I preached it myself back then. And just like former smokers are the most obnoxious anti-smoking crusaders, every time I see a comment like the GP I roll my eyes and feel the need to warn others to not fall into the same cult-like thinking I did back then.
- jol 13y ago
  because of network effects that will kick in when Linux finally reaches market share that has to be respected (I expect that to be somewhere close to 10 %), this is much more important. And now when Steam came to linux, that can be kickstarted, thus never say never :)
  - simonh 13y ago
    Linux has something like 60% of the mobile market already. I'm perfectly serious, the cognitive dissonance that fact causes in Linux desktop enthusiasts is very revealing. If 'Linux' ever gets anywhere on the desktop, it will be one 'distro' (I prefer to call them Operating Systems) running one desktop environment with one primary application development framework that does so. That's because that fact that Linux has anything to do with Android, or FirefoxOS, or Ubuntu Mobile is basically irrelevant. What actually matters is the UI layer and the development framework. That's why the fragmentation in Linux distros has killed any chance of Linux taking over the desktop. It's because the things that actually matter - desktop frameworks and development environments - are where the main fragmentation lies. For desktop dominance it's that desktop layer that has to be as unified, robust and compatible as possible.

lucb1e 13y ago

Slow news day?

ecesena 13y ago

I like the Windows 8 UX pretty much. I feel very comfortable with the horizontal scroll which is, imho, totally natural and in some sense more effective than the vertical scroll we got used because of smartphones. Perhaps we're crazy, but at Theneeds we believed in Windows 8 and we released our app [1] even before iOS and Android... let's see what happens ;) [1] http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/theneeds/9e1d48a5-8c46-4723-ba46-9fc9cd6a8464 http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/theneeds/9e1d48a...

apapli 13y ago
Hey, that looks great. When I'm near my windows 8 computer I'll be sure to give it a spin!
- ecesena 13y ago
  Thanks. Let me have your feedback!
johnward 13y ago
I tried it on my desktop for a few weeks but I just couldn't handle it. It was really a terrible experience for me. I could see how it would work on tablets though. I went back to Windows 7 and probably won't upgrade again.
- ecesena 13y ago
  I see. In fact I was mainly thinking to tablets and a "mostly-read" experience.

thedawn 13y ago

Very interesting. I think that Win8 is much much better to use especially when you have a touch screen.

iamthepieman 13y ago

If you're a developer and use Windows for any reason then Windows 8.1 is a huge improvement over previous Microsoft operating systems. Only Windows 2000 compares. The built in type-1 hypervisor alone is worth the upgrade. Hyper-V is faster than virtual-box and other is becoming a real competitor to VMWare and Citrix products.

adventureloop 13y ago
Maybe, but 8.1 killed all of our VS2005 projects. If you are a developer that doesn't want to do upgrades on potentially fragile build files it is not a god send.