5 ms·

To me, the real interesting part of this story is that Mac OS X trails Windows Vista in market share.

by 300bps 13y ago

ChuckMcM 13y ago
I took a picture on the train the other day, in the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley on CalTrain it was macbooks all the way down the car. It was the first time I had seen the entire car with nothing but Macbooks. That said, the particular infographic is misleading in a number of ways, MacOS 10.9 but none of the other versions? Windows 8 and 8.1 are differentiated by not Windows Vista, SP1, and SP2? Microsoft's biggest problem is that XP is "good enough" on hardware that will never run Windows 7. That leaves them asking someone to spend anywhere from $500 to $1000 to "upgrade" a machine that is working fine for the intended purpose, sometimes several thousand machines. And who wants to do that? If someone wants to do something crazy at Microsoft it would be to target windows 9 to every single windows capable platform from XP to present. That would be a huge amount of work and so I doubt they will even attempt it, and they would have to back port drivers for hardware where the vendor no longer exists. But it would solidify their OS position once again.
- Einstalbert 13y ago
  That would make Windows 9 so much money. Having to shell out a huge amount of money for upgrading is keeping our customer base (school districts) from making the leap before the last possible moment. With the advent of thin clients and visualization, having a low-powered machine with a low-overhead operating system is looking more and more normal.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Well one could argue that folks already paid it forward. One could decide to take a couple of billion out of the cash on hand pile and invest it in reinforcing the OS footprint. I think ultimately that is what Apple is trying to prevent with their low cost OS upgrades. But as a strategic move it would fix a number of weaknesses in Microsoft's current situation.
- Encosia 13y ago
  That echo chamber is particularly strong though. Here in Atlanta, I usually don't see a single MacBook when I go to Starbucks to work in the afternoon. Lots of iPhones and iPads as auxiliary devices, but almost entirely PCs getting work and study done across every demographic.
  - code_duck 13y ago
    I wonder how that varies regionally. I spent a couple of years traveling and working at coffee shops, and my observation is that most places, similar to where I live in Minnesota, have a high degree of MacBook usage in coffee shops. When I go out here, it's usually about 80% macs. A website I've run for several years is now visited by 30% Mac OS, growing from 18% in 2008.
    - Encosia 13y ago
      When it comes to website traffic, it definitely depends on your audience. I have a consumer-facing website that serves a few million pageviews per month and has never cracked 5% OS X visitors (3.6% last month). On the other hand, my blog sees nearly 10% OS X traffic even though it has a lot of content targeted toward Microsoft developers.
    - hrktb 13y ago
      The battery life of the Macbooks may skew the number of machines seen in open public spaces. I see a lot of coworkers with windows notebooks lugging their power cable everywhere they go and getting the computer out only if they secure a power outlet.
      - Encosia 13y ago
        I recently moved from a MacBook Air (running OS X, not Windows) to a Samsung Ultrabook and haven't seen any noticeable difference in battery life pro or con. That's with it driving a 3200x1800 display and a Core i7 processor too. There are definitely $400 PC laptops out there that just suck from start to finish (including battery life), but good Wintel laptops are pretty easy to find these days.
- Aaronontheweb 13y ago
  Ex-Microsoftie here. They actually already did that with Windows 8. Steven Sinofsky even did a demo to us where he got Windows 8 up and running on an ancient laptop originally manufactured for use with Windows 95 or 98 (piece of x86 hardware that was close to 20 years old.) Windows 8 has lower system requirements and a smaller storage requirement than Windows 7 - this was necessitated by the requirement to support ARM architecture beginning with Windows 8. The problem is that Windows XP exists predominantly in two environments that are historically tricky for Microsoft: 1. Pirated copies, largely in Asia and 2. Deeply barnacled enterprise deployments, especially in Governments. The reason why Microsoft's bothered supporting XP for so long is because of the amount of revenue tied up in #2. If Microsoft dynamites support for XP and those barnacled enterprises have to reinvent their entire IT infrastructure around something new, there's a very strong possibility in some cases that a Linux-based solution might win, particularly in the public sector. So it's a tricky issue, but Microsoft won't ultimately be able to kick the can down the road forever. What will ultimately move people off of XP is when third party developers decide to stop supporting it, which they largely still do.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Fascinating, and thanks for that factoid. I wonder why Microsoft has never really pushed that concept out to consumers.
    - Aaronontheweb 13y ago
      I've often wondered that myself - to be honest, I can't recall Microsoft making a strong push for upgrading the OS of existing machines since Windows Vista; primarily, I think, because of the huge disaster that ensued with aforementioned push. The "Upgrade from XP to Vista" rollout backfired for a ton of reasons, but if I had to summarize it was due to these facts: 1. Microsoft did not work closely enough with device manufacturers to ensure device compatibility from Windows XP to Vista. Printers and video cards primarily. 2. Consumers now had to choose between 6 versions of Vista instead of "Pro" or "Home", which was confusing. 3. x64 architecture was introduced, which doubled the number of possible choices consumers had to make and inevitably lead to some consumers being very disappointed with their purchase. 4. Due to the introduction of Aero and some poor quality control on the part of the Windows team, Vista required vastly more resources than what many Windows XP machines were capable of delivering. Vista's minimum install footprint is something monstrous like 16-24GB, which was a stretch for Windows XP machines manufactured as long as 6 years prior. Since then, each version of Windows has required less resources than the edition before it. Sinofsky emphasized that. So in short, I think Microsoft realized that the QA burden is a lot greater than they previously thought and have left it up to their most technical consumers to decide whether or not to upgrade, relying instead on hardware refresh cycles to do most of the heavy lifting for the bulk of their consumers. Unfortunately with the advent of the "multi-device consumer," those upgrade cycles can often be much longer than three years now. Despite those concerns, Microsoft sold copies of Windows 8 for something phenomenally cheap initially, $49 IIRC, in hopes of getting people to upgrade their existing hardware. I believe they discontinued that practice 6 months after the initial release of Windows 8.
- JumpCrisscross 13y ago
  >in the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley on CalTrain it was macbooks all the way down the car. It was the first time I had seen the entire car with nothing but Macbooks. I notice this in the front cabins of flights nationwide, as well as on the Acela. I think it is less a phenomenon of Silicon Valley than that of crystallising class boundaries.
- FollowSteph3 13y ago
  That's what Apple does every 3-4 years but with much more expensive hardware. Any Mac computer will not be supported within 3-4 years. Why does Microsoft get in trouble for only supporting 10+ years for the same system...
  - josteink 13y ago
    Not to mention Apple gets away with doing this to $1000+ hardware which then is non-reusable, while Microsoft gets neck deep in shit for not supporting a $100 OS license 15 years down the road when the HW is perfectly reusable with a much cheaper OS update. This is clearly insane.
nknighthb 13y ago
Look at the actual data[1]. Just adding in 10.8 would bring the OS X number to 4.68%, well above Vista. If you add them all, it's 7.68%. [1] http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share....

To me, the real interesting part of this story is that Mac OS X trails Windows Vista in market share.

by 300bps 13y ago

To me, the real interesting part of this story is that Mac OS X trails Windows Vista in market share.

I took a picture on the train the other day, in the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley on CalTrain it was macbooks all the way down the car. It was the first time I had seen the entire car with nothing but Macbooks. That said, the particular infographic is misleading in a number of ways, MacOS 10.9 but none of the other versions? Windows 8 and 8.1 are differentiated by not Windows Vista, SP1, and SP2? Microsoft's biggest problem is that XP is "good enough" on hardware that will never run Windows 7. That leaves them asking someone to spend anywhere from $500 to $1000 to "upgrade" a machine that is working fine for the intended purpose, sometimes several thousand machines. And who wants to do that? If someone wants to do something crazy at Microsoft it would be to target windows 9 to every single windows capable platform from XP to present. That would be a huge amount of work and so I doubt they will even attempt it, and they would have to back port drivers for hardware where the vendor no longer exists. But it would solidify their OS position once again.

Einstalbert 13y ago
That would make Windows 9 so much money. Having to shell out a huge amount of money for upgrading is keeping our customer base (school districts) from making the leap before the last possible moment. With the advent of thin clients and visualization, having a low-powered machine with a low-overhead operating system is looking more and more normal.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Well one could argue that folks already paid it forward. One could decide to take a couple of billion out of the cash on hand pile and invest it in reinforcing the OS footprint. I think ultimately that is what Apple is trying to prevent with their low cost OS upgrades. But as a strategic move it would fix a number of weaknesses in Microsoft's current situation.
Encosia 13y ago
That echo chamber is particularly strong though. Here in Atlanta, I usually don't see a single MacBook when I go to Starbucks to work in the afternoon. Lots of iPhones and iPads as auxiliary devices, but almost entirely PCs getting work and study done across every demographic.
- code_duck 13y ago
  I wonder how that varies regionally. I spent a couple of years traveling and working at coffee shops, and my observation is that most places, similar to where I live in Minnesota, have a high degree of MacBook usage in coffee shops. When I go out here, it's usually about 80% macs. A website I've run for several years is now visited by 30% Mac OS, growing from 18% in 2008.
  - Encosia 13y ago
    When it comes to website traffic, it definitely depends on your audience. I have a consumer-facing website that serves a few million pageviews per month and has never cracked 5% OS X visitors (3.6% last month). On the other hand, my blog sees nearly 10% OS X traffic even though it has a lot of content targeted toward Microsoft developers.
  - hrktb 13y ago
    The battery life of the Macbooks may skew the number of machines seen in open public spaces. I see a lot of coworkers with windows notebooks lugging their power cable everywhere they go and getting the computer out only if they secure a power outlet.
    - Encosia 13y ago
      I recently moved from a MacBook Air (running OS X, not Windows) to a Samsung Ultrabook and haven't seen any noticeable difference in battery life pro or con. That's with it driving a 3200x1800 display and a Core i7 processor too. There are definitely $400 PC laptops out there that just suck from start to finish (including battery life), but good Wintel laptops are pretty easy to find these days.
Aaronontheweb 13y ago
Ex-Microsoftie here. They actually already did that with Windows 8. Steven Sinofsky even did a demo to us where he got Windows 8 up and running on an ancient laptop originally manufactured for use with Windows 95 or 98 (piece of x86 hardware that was close to 20 years old.) Windows 8 has lower system requirements and a smaller storage requirement than Windows 7 - this was necessitated by the requirement to support ARM architecture beginning with Windows 8. The problem is that Windows XP exists predominantly in two environments that are historically tricky for Microsoft: 1. Pirated copies, largely in Asia and 2. Deeply barnacled enterprise deployments, especially in Governments. The reason why Microsoft's bothered supporting XP for so long is because of the amount of revenue tied up in #2. If Microsoft dynamites support for XP and those barnacled enterprises have to reinvent their entire IT infrastructure around something new, there's a very strong possibility in some cases that a Linux-based solution might win, particularly in the public sector. So it's a tricky issue, but Microsoft won't ultimately be able to kick the can down the road forever. What will ultimately move people off of XP is when third party developers decide to stop supporting it, which they largely still do.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Fascinating, and thanks for that factoid. I wonder why Microsoft has never really pushed that concept out to consumers.
  - Aaronontheweb 13y ago
    I've often wondered that myself - to be honest, I can't recall Microsoft making a strong push for upgrading the OS of existing machines since Windows Vista; primarily, I think, because of the huge disaster that ensued with aforementioned push. The "Upgrade from XP to Vista" rollout backfired for a ton of reasons, but if I had to summarize it was due to these facts: 1. Microsoft did not work closely enough with device manufacturers to ensure device compatibility from Windows XP to Vista. Printers and video cards primarily. 2. Consumers now had to choose between 6 versions of Vista instead of "Pro" or "Home", which was confusing. 3. x64 architecture was introduced, which doubled the number of possible choices consumers had to make and inevitably lead to some consumers being very disappointed with their purchase. 4. Due to the introduction of Aero and some poor quality control on the part of the Windows team, Vista required vastly more resources than what many Windows XP machines were capable of delivering. Vista's minimum install footprint is something monstrous like 16-24GB, which was a stretch for Windows XP machines manufactured as long as 6 years prior. Since then, each version of Windows has required less resources than the edition before it. Sinofsky emphasized that. So in short, I think Microsoft realized that the QA burden is a lot greater than they previously thought and have left it up to their most technical consumers to decide whether or not to upgrade, relying instead on hardware refresh cycles to do most of the heavy lifting for the bulk of their consumers. Unfortunately with the advent of the "multi-device consumer," those upgrade cycles can often be much longer than three years now. Despite those concerns, Microsoft sold copies of Windows 8 for something phenomenally cheap initially, $49 IIRC, in hopes of getting people to upgrade their existing hardware. I believe they discontinued that practice 6 months after the initial release of Windows 8.
JumpCrisscross 13y ago
>in the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley on CalTrain it was macbooks all the way down the car. It was the first time I had seen the entire car with nothing but Macbooks. I notice this in the front cabins of flights nationwide, as well as on the Acela. I think it is less a phenomenon of Silicon Valley than that of crystallising class boundaries.
FollowSteph3 13y ago
That's what Apple does every 3-4 years but with much more expensive hardware. Any Mac computer will not be supported within 3-4 years. Why does Microsoft get in trouble for only supporting 10+ years for the same system...
- josteink 13y ago
  Not to mention Apple gets away with doing this to $1000+ hardware which then is non-reusable, while Microsoft gets neck deep in shit for not supporting a $100 OS license 15 years down the road when the HW is perfectly reusable with a much cheaper OS update. This is clearly insane.

nknighthb 13y ago

Look at the actual data[1]. Just adding in 10.8 would bring the OS X number to 4.68%, well above Vista. If you add them all, it's 7.68%. [1] http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share....