OS Usage Stats

[linuxdoctor]

While I was responding to the d-link thread I thought it might be useful to discuss the usage statistics for the various operating systems. There is a fallacy promulgating in the world that nobody uses Linux. In fact, according to the latest statistics, about 4% of users choose Linux. MacIntosh currently has about a 6.1% market share and almost all of the rest goes to Microsoft of one variety or another.

In March 2003 Microsoft had 93.2% of the market. As of April of this year that number was 89.5%. Year over year, Microsoft is loosing market share to both Linux and MacIntosh. That represents a decline of about 0.6% per year.

Linux's growth has been fairly steady year over year at about 0.3% per year. Not bad for something which growth depends largely on word of mouth.

MacIntosh growth is also good going from 1.8% in 2003 to about 6% today or about 0.7% per year.

As for other operating systems, that is to say not Linux, MacIntosh or Microsoft, in 2003 they comprised 2.8% or the market. In 2009 they are 0.4% of the market. That represents 0.4% market share decline per year in the last six years.

From these statistics, the growth of both Linux and MacIntosh has been at the expense of not only Microsoft but also at the expense of other operating systems as well. If we combine the rate of decline of Microsoft share and the 'other' share it exactly matches the rate of increase of both Linux and MacIntosh combined, or about 1% per year.

Interesting, eh? From the differentials in the rate of growth for Linux (0.3%) compared to MacIntosh (0.7%) it is obvious that MacIntosh is getting the lions share of those who switch with their increase more than twice that of Linux. It might be interesting to see how many of the 'other' camp went to the Mac and how many went to Linux as compared to the Microsoft people but I don't have any of those numbers. In other words, which camp prefers what operating system.

Source: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
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[Scott]

I don't think the statistics from W3Schools is a really legitimate source of information, as it is a site geared towards the technological crowd, who are more aware of alternatives. For example, on the browser statistics page it says that Firefox is more popular than Internet Explorer but if a site like Google or Facebook were to release these statistics, you would see that this is far from the truth. As those statistics would have the people who just use what their computer came installed with and believe the internet is the blue E on their desktop.
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[linuxdoctor]

[LP-SolidRaven]

Well, the real difference between those numbers if if you include users browsing the internet from their work or not. (That's how they collect this type of statistics)

If you exclude those people who use it at their work linux has more market share
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[linuxdoctor]