News

Windows Controls 97 Percent of PCs

• By Stuart J. Johnston
• August 22, 2006

Despite Microsoft's failure to release a new desktop operating system in the past five years, Windows' previous versions still give the company control of nearly 97 percent of all PCs worldwide, according to a leading Web analytics firm.

Amsterdam-based OneStat.com announced the figures in a report issued last week.

Various releases of Windows -- Windows XP, 2000, 98, ME and NT -- account for a whopping 96.97 percent of operating systems, the report said. At the top of the list is the most recent release, XP, with 86.8 percent, followed by Windows 2000, which still controls a surprising 6.09 percent of all PCs.

Bringing up the rear are Windows 98 with 2.68 percent, and Windows Millennium Edition with 1.09 percent, followed by aging Windows NT with a tiny 0.24 percent. Still, despite talk of the burgeoning popularity of Linux, the open source operating system only holds a miniscule portion of the overall market at 0.36 percent, OneStat said.

Apple's Mac OS accounts for nearly 2.5 percent of PC operating systems on a global basis.

OneStat's research is based on a sample of 2 million visitors divided into 20,000 visitors of 100 countries each day, according to the company's description of its survey methodology.