Windows Vista has grown from 0.18% to almost 1% of the operating system market in the first month of commercial availability. In doing so, Vista has already surpassed Linux, and is breathing down MacIntel's neck. According to data released by Market Share by Net Applications Windows Vista accounts at the beginning of March for no less than 0.93% of the operating system market.

By comparison, Linux has not made it past 0.42% of the market, although the commercial release of Windows Vista has taken the open source operating system out of a five month drop. Concomitantly with the release of Windows Vista, Linux has increased its market share by 0.07%.

The same is true for MacIntel. Although Mac OS has lost market share, dropping from 4.34% to 4.29%, MacIntel has grown 0.21% and has now evolved past the 2% market share milestone. In this regard, Market Share by Net Applications has revealed that MacIntel accounts for 2.09% of the operating system's market.

Another relevant factor worth mentioning is that Windows is down on all other fronts. Windows 2000 has lost market share, and so has Windows 98, but the two operating systems have had a descendant trajectory for a complete year now, so they are in the trend.

The fact of the matter is that, as I have estimated, Windows Vista did not manage to impact Apple's market share. However, Microsoft's latest operating system has taken a due toll on its predecessor. Since January 2007, Windows XP was nudged off a steadily increasing trajectory and has begun losing ground to Windows Vista. This trend will only accentuate in the upcoming months. As I have said, the only way for Windows Vista to go is up. In this regard, it will be interesting to see if Vista overtakes MacIntel by the end of March or if it will require two months to do so.