Mac has 8% share, Windows down, Linux up

[Midwest-Linux]

Mac OS X Market Share Nears 8%

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208802203


The global market share for Linux jumped in the past 10 months, while Microsoft's Windows lost a few points, says Net Applications.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
July 2, 2008 01:30 PM

Apple's share of the global operating system market is climbing steadily, and could top 8% this month, statistics from a Web metrics firm showed Wednesday.


During the same period, Linux has also increased market share, rising to 0.8% of the market in June from 0.47% last August, according to Net Applications. Meanwhile, the global market share ofMicrosoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows has declined over the last 10 months. In June, Windows accounted for 90.89% of the market, down from 93.06%.

[goforlinux]

Never will i knock Apple Mac for its operating system its great. But Their a very greedy company though and over priced lol.

Windows ill knock as much as i want vista is another windows ME and it sucks something else to get quick money off of it sucks very much!!!

Linux is awesome and people are seeing the light finally saying hey look there is an alternative lol

[Alfa989]

OS X up.
Linux up.

Grrrrreat! :D

[the.dark.lord]

I'd rather see Mac down and Windows up... then to Apple taking over the market.

[TheWizzard]

I'd rather see Mac down and Windows up... then to Apple taking over the market.

no, diversity is good in general and helps linux!

[3rdalbum]

The figures are flawed. Apple might possibly have 8% of the market, but we'd have at least 4% of the market.

[karellen]

The figures are flawed. Apple might possibly have 8% of the market, but we'd have at least 4% of the market.

not quite
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8
4% is overly optimistic

[Vegabondsx]

I'd rather see Mac down and Windows up... then to Apple taking over the market.

Weather you like Apple or not, competition is a good thing and in the end helps all operating systems stand a chance.

[happysmileman]

I'd rather see Mac down and Windows up... then to Apple taking over the market.

I think Apple are a much worse company than Microsoft (maybe not their products, but definitely their practises).

But Linux is a long way from being used by 8% of the population, with Apple getting this much it probably won't be too long until companies take cross-platforms apps more seriously.

And cross-platform will benefit Linux, since practically every cross-platform toolkit works on all 3 OSes (Qt, GTK, WxWidgets, etc...) so it will be easier for those people to make Linux ports with very little effort (and more importantly to them, very little cost) if they already have them cross-platform.

[Canis familiaris]

Apple certainly doesnt have 8%.

[curtis]

GNU/Linux will only gain more market share as Windows gets worse.

[Canis familiaris]

GNU/Linux will only gain more market share as Windows gets worse.
No, if only if it itself gets better.

[Felixworks]

Eugh, I wish Linux had gained that market share instead of Mac. Sorry, I just dislike the "don't do anything yourself" mentality of Apple. It encourages stupidity.

[CrazyArcher]

Sorry, I just dislike the "don't do anything yourself" mentality of Apple. It encourages stupidity.
Apparently that's what the users want to get... =/

[VCSkier]

Apple certainly doesnt have 8%.

I don't know... I work at a coffee shop adjacent to the college Ire am attending, and in class and at work I definitely see significantly more Mac's than PC's. If I had to put a number on it, I'd guess probably two-thirds of the computers I see are Macs. Obviously it's a matter of where you are and what you see. Hopefully the group that did these statistics had a broader view than you or I.

Regarding what this means for us, I think it's a good thing. I've been saying for a while that with Vista, Microsoft has taken a serious blow; I think their glory days are behind them. Windows usage will continue to decline. I do think Apple will see the most significant increase initially, as people are looking for alternatives, but still feel that all good things have a high price tag. In the long run though, simply the fact that people are willing to try something new is a good sign for Free software. People's expensive Macbook's will start breaking, as they always do, and users will see that you don't always get what you pay for.

In 5-10 years things will look quite different.

[handy]

For what its worth, here is another reference:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

[nerd0795]

If apple dominates, a giant black hole will appear and rip the tech world as we know it. The thing is if Apple still only let's their os installed on their hardware. Apple might (probably not be that cruel) ban linux with the terms and make it a copyright infrigment. Or any other OS. Then what would the pc vendors don't use Windows. People would struggle with picking a distro and just get a mac. Many pc vendors would go out of buisness messing up the economy even more. Then they can prevent third party hardware manufactures for making drivers. Ok.... maybe they wouldn't be that cruel but they can ban competition from being installed on their hardware. But ya never know Apple might let mac os x be installed on any machine just for the reason that many PC vendors would go out of buisness. and maybe even openly accept linux and make a installer kinda like bootcamp. Only time will tell.:confused::confused::confused::confused::conf used::confused:

Though I do hope Windows 7 is the best version of Window's yet... I heard that bill gate's said it would have alot of new things I believe. (Anyways I don't want to be locked in to mac hardware so windows better kick Mac os x's butt so bad that the go across the world then land in a junk yard :lolflag:

[L815]

When it comes to the world of Apple vs Microsoft, I'll kick it with Microsoft :lolflag: