News

Report: Windows 7 Passes XP as Most-Used OS in U.S.

For the first time since its release in October 2009, Windows 7's U.S. market share has surpassed Windows XP's -- at least according to one source.

The finding, announced by Dublin, Ireland-based aggregate data collection company StatCounter, is based on the OSes' market share performances between March 2010 and April 2011. StatCounter's research shows that Windows 7's usage rate for that period rose to 31.98 percent, compared to XP's 31.2 percent.

Rounding out the top five OSes in the United States during that period are Windows Vista (19.23 percent usage rate), Mac OS X (14.79 percent usage rate) and Linux (0.7 percent usage rate). The numbers for these three OSes were relatively unchanged since StatCounter's previous study.

However, XP still leads the OS pack in worldwide usage numbers for the same time period, with 47.7 percent of the global market. Windows 7 has 31.17 percent of the worldwide market share.

According to StatCounter, it derives its results by analyzing the usage rate of more than 3 million global sites, with an average of 15 billion hits per month. It then can determine which browser and operating system each individual is using. It's worth noting that only desktops are included in the company's figures; laptops, netbooks and other mobile devices are not accounted for.

While StatCounter's figures are good news for the newest Windows OS, they contradict those of Stat Owl, a rival Ariz.-based online data analytic company. According to Stat Owl's tracking system, XP still has a commanding lead in the U.S. market with 51.56 percent of usage, while Windows 7 is actually in third place (behind Vista's 23.45 percent share) with 23.21 percent.

The contradicting figures can stem from the fact that Stat Owl says it predominately tracks U.S.-centric Web sites and has a user tracking base of 28 million -- 25 million more than StatCounter.

About the Author

Chris Paoli (@ChrisPaoli5) is the associate editor for Converge360.

Featured

  • Microsoft Appoints Althoff as New CEO for Commercial Business

    Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella on Wednesday announced the promotion of Judson Althoff to CEO of the company's commercial business, presenting the move as a response to the dramatic industrywide shifts caused by AI.

  • Broadcom Revamps VMware Partner Program Again

    Broadcom recently announced a significant update regarding its VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program, coinciding with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a key component in Broadcom’s private cloud strategy.

  • Closeup of the new Copilot keyboard key

    Microsoft Updates Copilot To Add Context-Sensitive Agents to Teams, SharePoint

    Microsoft has rolled out a new public preview for collaborative "always on" agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing enhanced, context-aware tools into Teams channels, meetings, SharePoint sites, Planner workstreams and Viva Engage communities.

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.