Microsoft appears to be getting relatively strong early adoption of Windows 7 in the 10 days since its official launch.
According to Net Applications, more than 3 percent of PCs accessing the Web in the past two days have been doing so using the new operating system. Usage of the operating system has been growing strong in recent days, though Windows 7 already accounted for 2 percent of global Web traffic in the days ahead of its formal launch.
"The early adoption of Windows 7 looks very strong, and I don't believe Vista enjoyed the same early success," said Vince Vizzaccaro, an executive vice president at Net Applications. "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.
The news is not all positive for Microsoft, though. As a whole, the Mac OS continues to gain on Windows. As of October, Windows had 92.5 percent of the worldwide operating system market, but Mac OS reached 5.27 percent, up from 5.12 percent in September. (Past numbers from Net Applications showed the Mac OS with significantly higher market share, though the market research firm says it has changed its methodology to better reflect the relative traffic of the countries from which it is getting data.)
Apple's recent anti-Windows 7 advertising has touted that if users are going to upgrade their Windows XP machines and have to transfer their data anyway, they might as well move to a Mac. Vizzaccaro said the early numbers suggest that the Mac might indeed be benefiting from such a trend but said it is too early to know for sure.
"We'll know much more in the months ahead," he said.
Although the conventional wisdom is that the rise of the Netbook is hurting the Windows business, a Microsoft executive said Tuesday that lower-cost laptops can actually be a good thing.
Speaking at an investor conference, general manager Charles Songhurst said that overall, most people buying Netbooks are either multiple PC owners in developed markets or first-time PC buyers in emerging markets.
"From what we see they are incremental," Songhurst said. "They are new scenarios."
Even if that is true, the fact is that Netbooks have been growing in numbers, while traditional PCs have slumped--a shift that has undeniably hurt the average amount of money Microsoft is getting for each copy of Windows.
One of the opportunities, Songhurst said, is if Microsoft can gain additional revenue on high-end PCs, noting that Microsoft has tended to get about $50 in Windows revenue for the standard $1,000 PC. (Microsoft tends not to talk about how much it charges PC makers for Windows, so it was interesting to hear him mention that figure a couple of times during his chat, which was available as a Webcast.)
Songhurst
(Credit: Microsoft)Asked about Google's forthcoming Chrome OS, Songhurst said that while it could be a threat if it is demonstrably better, just being cheaper won't offer much of a threat, saying the quality of Windows 7 will help the company fend off new competition. Microsoft plans to launch Windows 7 on October 22, while Google's Chrome OS is not expected until next year.
As for whether Apple might gain ground inside corporations, Songhurst said that Apple isn't winning over the key executives that make technology purchases, such as chief information officers.
"If they are not compelling to the CIO, they are not going to make inroads in the enterprise," he said.
On the Bing front, Songhurst acknowledged that even if Bing is getting good results in the U.S., the company faces an even larger hurdle in the global market, where Google has nearly 70 percent share. Songhurst said that although Bing's engine is available globally, it has yet to put the same kind of marketing dollars overseas as it has in the U.S.
"That marketing push makes a (big) difference," Songhurst said.
One of the other things Microsoft has done is sign deals with companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo to make Bing the default search engine on new PCs. Asked if Microsoft is eying more such pacts, Songhurst said yes.
"Always we'll do distribution deals for Bing," Songhurst said. "We're quite active in getting out and competing for those."
There's a Snow Leopard on Live Search for sure. But could Live Search be inside Snow Leopard?
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET Networks)Those of us with too much bandwidth and too little life (yours truly included) are wondering just why Microsoft chose to make a snow leopard the backdrop photo on Live Search on Thursday.
Even though Microsoft puts a new picture on the site each day, surely it hasn't exhausted all the images that are not references to competitor's products.
As TechFlash points out, the fact that Microsoft has the mascot for Apple's next operating system could be cluelessness on Microsoft's point. Or it could be hubris.
But another crazy thought crossed my mind. What if Microsoft has landed a deal to make Live Search the default in the next version of the Mac OS. For a long time now, Apple's Safari has had a Google search bar built-in. I don't know how much traffic that generates for the search giant, but it would seem to be at least as significant as some of the PC deals that Microsoft is paying good money to get.
Obvious animosities aside, mightn't a deal make sense. Microsoft has talked about needing to spend some money to boost Live Search share.
If it is the case, would Microsoft and/or Apple be crazy enough to tip their hand? It seems unlikely. But, even if that's not the reason that the Snow Leopard is there, would such a deal make sense?
Computer sales on Amazon.com are not exactly a proxy for the broader retail market. Still, I do think it is noteworthy that of the top 20 best-selling laptops on Thursday evening, just one was running Windows Vista.
That one is an HP mini-notebook that ranked No. 18, trailing behind a gaggle of Macs and Netbooks running either Windows XP or Linux.
On the plus side for Redmond, 10 of the top 20 machines were running some flavor of Windows. And, as I mentioned, Amazon is not a true barometer.
Apple's market share, while growing isn't exactly neck and neck with Microsoft's. And Netbooks, while a rising trend, aren't completely taking over the market.
But while the numbers are skewed the trends are worth paying attention to. Two of the hottest parts of the PC market are the areas where Windows faces its stiffest competition.
The Amazon sales trend was noted earlier Thursday by MacDailyNews, though they used a slightly different measurement.
For a long time, Apple had an informal marketing slogan "5 down, 95 to go" referring to its percentage share of the computer business.
We gave them a hard time back then, because they didn't even have the 5 percent market share they were always talking about. These days, though, they have well passed that number and are inching closer to 10 percent, at least in the U.S.
While Windows certainly still dominates the computer market, Apple's operating system continues to gain market share. Just released second-quarter market share figures from Gartner show Apple shipments up 38 percent, to 8.5 percent of all units shipped, up from 6.4 percent a year ago. IDC had Apple's gains somewhat lower, at a 7.8 percent share, up from 6.2 percent a year earlier, but the trend is the same.
"They've got great products and they are executing well," IDC analyst Loren Loverde said in a telephone interview, adding "they are benefiting from the excitement and press over their other products."
Microsoft is working on a multiyear, megamillion-dollar marketing push for Windows and, as the numbers show, it can't come soon enough. Apple's gains on Windows are particularly painful given that U.S. computer shipments only grew 4.2 percent, again according to Gartner.
Worldwide shipments fared better, up 16 percent for the quarter, and of course Apple's worldwide share is far lower than its domestic one. Despite Apple's U.S. gains, its worldwide market share was 3.3 percent in the second quarter, according to IDC. That's down slightly from last quarter, but up from 2.9 percent a year ago.
Loverde said Apple would have to continue growing really fast for some time to move ahead of Toshiba and crack the top 5 in global sales.
Although Microsoft officially stopped selling Windows XP as of June 30, retailers can keep selling it as long as they have copies.
Perhaps as a result of its potentially impending scarcity, XP is near the top of Amazon.com's software list, with the full version of XP Home at No. 15 and the full version of XP Pro at No. 21.
The highest ranked Vista edition doesn't crack the top 25, although it does come on nearly all new PCs these days so most people don't need a boxed copy.
For those keeping score, Apple's Mac OS X Leopard is No. 7 on the software list, while the highest ranking Vista version is the update version of Windows Vista Home Premium, at No. 41.
On the bright side for Redmond, Office Home and Student for Windows is No. 1 and the Mac edition of Office Home and Student is No. 3.
For those still looking to get their hands on XP, it doesn't seem like it's all that hard to find. Best Buy had it listed in several different flavors online and noted that it's also available in most stores. Staples, Office Depot, Circuit City, and OfficeMax all listed at least one version of XP on their Web sites as well.
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