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Long before Windows 7's launch, reaching the October 22 date seemed to take forever. This wasn't helped by the insane amount of advertising for the new OS, and constant updates flowing around the Web. But, it's been 10 days since that date was hit, and now we seem to be soaring past it fairly quickly. Windows 7 is here, it's popular, and according to a new report by Net Applications, it's already accounting for 3% of PCs which access the web.
This isn't a major feat, but it's definitely notable. When you consider that a vast number of Windows users are either non-techy or could care less what OS they're using, in turn lessening the chance of an upgrade, seeing such quick adoption is a good sign for Microsoft - especially after such a rough Vista launch. I was hoping that our stats software of choice, Google Analytics, would have been updated to single out Windows 7 in our aggregated statistics, but unfortunately, it hasn't been. Once it is updated, I'll give updates here to give an idea of how many of our users have moved on up.
One thing's for certain here... the Windows 7 launch has gone far smoother than Vista's. I've seen some relatively minor hitches, such as an issue with student upgrade copies, but aside from that, the news I've seen has been generally positive. Whereas you couldn't avoid news of Vista's launch regarding incompatibilities, I've seen nothing of the sort over the past two weeks. So all in all, it looks like the Windows 7 launch was a success, and we should be able to tell within the next month or two if adoption is going to continue growing at the same or faster rate.
Microsoft has the recent launch to be happy about, but also according to Net Applications, there's a potential reason for worry as well. During October, Mac OS X usage increased from 5.12% to 5.27%. While a minor bump, this is only a one-month change. At the rate of 0.15% per month, if it continued, Apple could potentially gain 1.8% or more within the next 12 months. 0.15% might be minor, but 1.8% certainly isn't. It's a little tough to judge things as they stand with initial Windows 7 data, so the next few months should be pretty interesting as we'll likely see more telling trends.
"The early adoption of Windows 7 looks very strong and I don't believe Vista enjoyed the same early success," Net Applications' Executive Vice President Vince Vizzaccaro. "Plus, we've seen surges the past two weekend days, and Windows has historically seen much higher usage market share on weekdays than on weekends." However, weekends tend to see stronger usage by consumers. And consumers are more likely to move quickly to a new version of Windows than businesses, which tend to do extensive testing before adopting a new operating system.
Source: Beyond Binary
This isn't a major feat, but it's definitely notable. When you consider that a vast number of Windows users are either non-techy or could care less what OS they're using, in turn lessening the chance of an upgrade, seeing such quick adoption is a good sign for Microsoft - especially after such a rough Vista launch. I was hoping that our stats software of choice, Google Analytics, would have been updated to single out Windows 7 in our aggregated statistics, but unfortunately, it hasn't been. Once it is updated, I'll give updates here to give an idea of how many of our users have moved on up.
One thing's for certain here... the Windows 7 launch has gone far smoother than Vista's. I've seen some relatively minor hitches, such as an issue with student upgrade copies, but aside from that, the news I've seen has been generally positive. Whereas you couldn't avoid news of Vista's launch regarding incompatibilities, I've seen nothing of the sort over the past two weeks. So all in all, it looks like the Windows 7 launch was a success, and we should be able to tell within the next month or two if adoption is going to continue growing at the same or faster rate.
Microsoft has the recent launch to be happy about, but also according to Net Applications, there's a potential reason for worry as well. During October, Mac OS X usage increased from 5.12% to 5.27%. While a minor bump, this is only a one-month change. At the rate of 0.15% per month, if it continued, Apple could potentially gain 1.8% or more within the next 12 months. 0.15% might be minor, but 1.8% certainly isn't. It's a little tough to judge things as they stand with initial Windows 7 data, so the next few months should be pretty interesting as we'll likely see more telling trends.
"The early adoption of Windows 7 looks very strong and I don't believe Vista enjoyed the same early success," Net Applications' Executive Vice President Vince Vizzaccaro. "Plus, we've seen surges the past two weekend days, and Windows has historically seen much higher usage market share on weekdays than on weekends." However, weekends tend to see stronger usage by consumers. And consumers are more likely to move quickly to a new version of Windows than businesses, which tend to do extensive testing before adopting a new operating system.
Source: Beyond Binary