Using an operating system that’s has good adoption is important for when you actually want to get stuff done with your computer (you know, being productive?) When you use an OS with wide adoption, naturally there’s more vendor support; this means more stuff will work with your computer on both the hardware and software side of things.
Here’s how the chart looks for what people are using for OSes over the last 12 months. The first chart will be for the North American region, and the second global. These charts were generated at Statcounter.
North America
Worldwide
North America
Windows Vista use is dropping like a brick as Windows 7 shot right past it easily, and at this point is very close to overtaking Windows XP.
Linux flatlines and made no significant gains. No surprise there.
Mac OS X had a slow but steady gain, but is starting to fall off. This is typical Mac market share concerning their desktop line.
Global
Windows 7 is nowhere near the point of overtaking XP but blasted past Vista easily similar to how it did in North America.
Linux, like in North America, flatlines globally on the desktop. Again, no surprise there.
Mac OS X had a small nudge from 5.92% use 12 months ago to 6.53%. That is significant for Apple’s OS on a global scale, but still doesn’t beat any Windows OS out there.
What you can take from these statistics
In North America it’s probably true you have until 2012 before XP is officially not the most-used Windows anymore. At that point you can expect vendor support to drop significantly, so if you’re an XP user now and were wondering when was the right time to go with a new Windows, there’s your answer.
Outside of North America however it’s a different story. XP will continue to live on well into 2012 and possibly all the way to 2013 before newer versions of Windows overtake.
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Can’t read diagrams
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I am glad to know that I am one of the few to be smart enough to get Linux to work on the hardware that I have and to find the software that I can use to complete the tasks that I need to complete. It is just a shame that more people do not realize that Linux gives you more options and better tools to complete unique things all without costing a person a ton of money.