Cracks at Robert Pogson

There are more signs of cracks in the monopoly these days:

share of web stats keeps dropping (87.8%)
mercy-killing of KIN as Android overtakes that other OS in smart-thingies
grumbling in the ranks about KIN and leadership/openness to new ideas

Now, I don’t take web stats for gospel especially when there is clear bias in favour of that other OS and Apple, but if consistently calculated the same way each time, I find them useful indicators of trends. Clearly the share of that other OS is shrinking and much of the fall-off of XP is going to GNU/Linux and MacOS. From May to June, W3Schools shows XP down 0.7% of share and GNU/Linux up 0.3% and MacOS up 0.1%.

The cancellation of a new product weeks after release shows a real failure of market-research and marketing. The stunted feature-set shows the new ideas from Danger were not used and the grumbling reinforces that idea. I think the world would have been a better place if Vista had been cancelled but the monopoly forced a defective release on the markets. M$ does not have a monopoly on smart-thingies. They will not keep their monopoly on the PC either, if these trends continue.

In a year, according to W3Schools, that other OS has fallen from 88.6% to 87.8% in share, more than 10 million PCs, while GNU/Linux has risen from 4.2% TO 4.8%, more than 8 million PCs. What the end-point of this shift will be I cannot tell, but those XP machines are going 40% to GNU/Linux and there are hundreds of millions of those machines out there. Many will run just fine with a new GNU/Linux installation or the older ones can make great thin clients or be replaced by new thick clients running GNU/Linux. It could be that within a couple of years, when XP is killed, GNU/Linux could have 25% share or more. Around 10% share now, GNU/Linux will make sense to everyone be they OEM, retailer, business or consumer.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.

2 Responses to “Cracks”

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1 lightpriest Jul 10th, 2010 at 9:02 am

Although the numbers are a good sign, let us not forget that w3schools is a technologically oriented site.
2 Robert Pogson Jul 10th, 2010 at 4:15 pm

True but they have lots of .NET/.asp stuff that is for that other OS.

I most look for changes in the numbers and do not worry about the values themselves. While the site does not show rapid increase for share of GNU/Linux, over time it is steadily growing while that other OS declines. People who work on servers running that other OS do surf a bit for drivers, downloads and solutions so the numbers make some sense.

What would be better would be numbers from Google or some large ISP.