14 DAY TRIAL // There is now one user of Windows 7 for every two users of Windows XP worldwide. Similarly, there are two customers running Windows 7 for each one still on Windows Vista. According to statistics released by Internet metrics company Net Applications, Windows 7 continues to gain traction worldwide, having reached a usage share of no less than 23.08%.
More importantly, Windows 7’s momentum seems to keep steady and not indicate any signs of declaration, which is important, especially as more and more details on Windows 8, the next major iteration of Windows, will make it to the public in the future.
Windows 7’s usage share was at 20.87% in December 2010, with the OS climbing to 22.31% in the first month of 2011.
And while Windows 7 now reached 23.08% usage share, Windows XP is slowly losing more of its grip on the operating system market.
XP continues in its downward trend, dipping to 55.09% in February 2011 from 55.26% the previous month.
Windows Vista too continues to lose market share, and is now down to 11.01% from 11.66% the previous month.
Fact is that since its introduction in October 2009, Windows 7 has delivered a superb market performance, convincing customers to embrace it at the rate of over 7 copies per second.
Obviously, Windows 7 is perfectly capable of killing XP, but this aside, users of Windows Vista’s predecessor need to be aware of the fact that there’s not much life left in the aging operating system.
Microsoft will discontinue extended support for Windows XP in just three years from now, in the first half of 2014.
This of course means that customers waiting for the next Windows client to release before upgrading risk cutting it a tad too close for comfort.
Windows 7 SP1 RTM and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RTM are available for download here.
