Windows 7 Surpasses Windows XP With 42.72% Market Share

Sites include Microsoft.com . Published on September 15th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

For a while Windows X was the gold standard of the Windows line of operating systems. Home users and businesses alike kept it alive for years when Microsoft released failure after failure.

Windows 7 changed all that. The leaner more efficient operating has now become so popular that it’s now surpassed XP in terms of overall market share. The data which was compiled by Net Applications, found that Windows 7 climbed 0.51 percentage points in August 2012 to close out at 42.72% market share. XP on the other hand fell 0.34 percentage points to close out at 42.52% market share.

Obviously there isn’t a lot between the two operating systems but the prediction by many experts is that Windows 7 will become the de facto standard among users and eventually XP’s share of the market will gradually shrink.

Microsoft also has to contend with Apple’s OS X which according to Net Applications has gained enough market share to surpass Windows Vista. According to the latest set of data, Mac OS gained 0.16 percentage points to close out at 7.13% of market share. Vista is still hanging about with 6.15% market share, a figure which shows just how poor it’s considered by users as an operating system.

Overall Microsoft still continues to dominate the operating system space and will no doubt continue to do so in the future. Its latest iteration of Windows will have to battle its way for acceptance among a new breed of users who have total faith in Windows 7.