14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is confident that the upcoming Windows 8 operating system will attract millions of buyers from the first months of availability, but statistics seem to be prove otherwise.
When it comes to the number of users who installed the preview versions, Windows 7 is much more attractive than its successor, according to figures revealed by Net Applications.
Last month, only 0.33 percent of all Windows users were actually running Windows 8, which means that only 33 out of every 10,000 Windows machines were using this particular OS version, Computer World writes.
Windows 7, on the other hand, attracted many more users in September 2009, only a few weeks before its official launch. At that time, Windows 7 had a market share of 1.64 percent, which means that 164 computers out of every 10,000 machines were running Windows 7.
In plain English, Windows 8 has five times less early adopters than Windows 7, but Microsoft isn’t worried at all.
Steve Ballmer has already emphasized in an interview with The Seattle Times that Windows 8 will succeed and he has absolutely no doubt that millions of copies will be sold before year’s end.
What’s more, Ballmer said that Windows 8’s launch is at least as important as Windows 95’s, which is considered “the biggest thing in the last 20 years until now.”
“There's going to be close to 400 million PCs sold in the next year, which makes it a big market. And whether it's 405 (million) or 395 (million), it's a big market, and Windows 8 will propel that volume,” he told the newspaper.