There is little doubt that the Windows operating system accounts for the lion's share of the operating system market worldwide. As Microsoft is counting the remaining millions to the 1 billion Windows install base forecasted for mid 2008, Windows Vista continues to erode the domination of Windows XP. And it will be Vista in 2008 to take Microsoft to the 1 billion Windows machines milestone. Beginning with February 2008, XP will only continue to be made available to system builders until 2009, but no longer via direct original equipment manufacturers or retail.

Windows Vista debuted to businesses in November 2006 and the consumer release followed at the end of January 2007. Initially Vista was made available in 19 languages and in 70 countries around the world. The operating system enjoyed the support of over 640,000 partners worldwide and it brought to the table compatibility for in excess of 1.5 million devices 30,000 drivers, more than 5,000 hardware and software products with the "Certified for Windows Vista" and "Works with Windows Vista" logos.

Six months later Vista is compatible with over 2,000 applications either "Working" or being "Certified" for the operating system and the platform has increased its support range to 2.1 million devices. Over 11,000 hardware items are now fully compatible with Vista.

Microsoft claims that Vista has shipped over 60 million licenses worldwide and the company is even willing to confirm 40 millions actual sales. When it comes down to usage however it is a whole different story, reflected in different perspectives by metrics companies OneStat and Market Share by Net Applications, in accordance with their methodologies.

Statistics from Market Share by Net Applications give Vista 5.41% of the operating system pie. Windows XP is down to 81.40%, as Vista moves in its place and Windows 2000 and Windows 98 are also losing ground and have dropped to 3.74% and 1.05%. All the figures were produced at the end of July. Apple is credited with a share of 5.97% while all the distributions of Linux amount to just 0.75%.

Worldwide OneStat gives Windows a usage share of 96.72%. Apple is second with 2.7% and Linux third with 0.36%. By operating system, OneStat's figures are Windows XP 87.36%; Windows 2000 3.99%; Windows Vista 3.23%; Macintosh 2.65%; Windows 98 1.39%; Windows Me 0.64% and Linux 0.36%.

But OneStat also paints another picture. One reflecting Vista's usage share on a selection of countries on three continents. In the U.S. Vista accounts for 3.49%, in Canada 2.93%, in the U.K 3.5%, in Australia 4.74%, in Germany 2.74%, in France 2.6%, in Italy 2.07%, in Belgium 3.6% and in the Netherlands just 3.31%.