14 DAY TRIAL // Just a few months ago you barely came across any mentions about Windows 8, the next major iteration of the Windows client, referred to officially by Microsoft as Windows vNext.
However, with Windows 8 reportedly approaching the Beta development milestone sometime in the second half of 2011, the volume of information about of the operating system available in the wild has exploded.
Leaked screenshot and bits and pieces of unconfirmed information are widely available, and despite this Windows 7’s market share continues to grow unhindered.
According to the latest statistics from Net Applications, at the end of March 2011, Windows 7’s usage share had climbed to as much as 24.17% from 23.08% the previous month.
Meanwhile, the usual suspects continued to lose audience to Windows 7. Between February and March, Windows XP dropped from 55.09% to 54.39%, while Windows Vista’s usage share went down from 11.01% to 10.56%.
Overall, Windows’s share of the market eroded just a bit more in the past couple of months, from 89.69% to 89.58%.
March 2011 marked the general availability of Windows 7 Service Pack 1, the first upgrade to the client since launch.
Since SP1 did not introduce any new features and was just a standard service pack is no wonder that Windows 7’s growth kept somewhat steady.
But most importantly, at least for the time being, Windows 8 seems unable to grab the limelight from Windows 7.
Of course, the fact that the actual Windows 8 bits haven’t been leaked yet, certainly helps. It does appear that Microsoft has focused more than with previous Windows releases on keeping Windows vNext under a tight lid this time around.
With Windows 8 Milestone 3 now in the works and chatter about the new OS increasing in quantity and volume, it will be interesting to see Windows 7’s market evolution over the coming months.