While Microsoft has hailed sales of more than 40 million licenses of Windows 8 in just the first month, traffic on the internet does not reflect a similar pattern based on the 15 billion page views per month that StatCounter analyzed. As of November 28, 2012, Windows 8 had an internet usage rate of 1.44% which is a fraction of what Windows 7 had in the month following its release. Windows 7 had a 4.93% share when it was one month old in November 2009.
Now before people start waling about the failure of the new OS or lies told by some evil software corporation, there may be some mitigating factors, most notably Hurricane Sandy which definitely had a significant impact on internet usage and shopping for an extended period of time. Another statistic that StatCounter noted was the relative increase in the adoption rate for each OS one month after release. Windows 8 had a 345% increase post-launch versus a 223% increase for Windows 7 for its relative period.
Windows 8 initial share at launch was also smaller, 0.38%, compared to 2.21% for Windows 7. The most immediate reason for that is that everyone was eager to upgrade out of disaster that was Windows Vista. The next immediate reason for the smaller share is because Windows 7, by-and-large, works great, thus the urgency to escape (like Vista) just is not there.
Another factor could be that the initial glut of licenses went to manufacturers and so we may yet see a surge in traffic as the holidays come to pass. Either way, Microsoft does not have that much to worry about. Windows holds a 90% share of the market based on the usage statistics gathered. Windows 7 has nearly 53% by itself, followed by Windows XP at 26%, Mac OS X with 8%, Vista at 6.6% and the iPad grabbing 2.91% all by itself. Linux holds on to a near constant 0.9%.
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As to whether or not Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 or not, it depends on where you look, how you look, who you ask and when you ask. The initial user experience with Windows 8 is a drastic departure from previous versions. Naturally, people may be a bit cautious.
Have you taken Windows 8 for a spin? Microsoft is doing a lot to entice you to upgrade. Have you? Will you?
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