Windows XP accounts for 84.95% of the market

Dec 7, 2006 13:05 GMT  ·  By

Windows Vista has already made an impact on the global operating system market. This despite the fact that Microsoft has made Vista available for download only via MSDN Premium Subscriptions on November 17, and has released the Enterprise edition to Software Assurance customers through volume licensing on November 30.

According to data published by Market Share by Net Applications, Windows Vista currently accounts for a total of 0.11% of the operating system market in November 2006. Vista has grown to 0.11% from 0.06% in September and 0.09% in October. And while Vista's market impact is minor at this point, it is bound to grow.

Market Share by Net Applications additionally delivers an overlook over the operating system market landscape. Microsoft dominated the worldwide OS market with a share of 94.16%. The largest piece of this share is attributed to Windows XP, no less than 84.95%.

Market Share by Net Applications additionally reveals that 5.46% of the world's desktops still run Windows 2000, while 1.9% have Windows 98 installed.

Microsoft's main rivals on the operating system market Macintosh and Linux have stagnant trajectories. The Mac OS and MacIntel account for 5.39% of the market while Linux is at 0.37% and by the looks of Vista's evolution in danger to being surpassed.

It is likely that the shares on the operating system market will change in December as the adoption of Windows Vista in the corporate environment is in the debut stage. Moreover, Vista will erode the market share of the other operating systems from the Redmond Company.