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{{OS marketshare|align=right}}
{{OS marketshare|align=right}}
Different categories of computers use a wide variety of [[operating system]]s, and the '''usage share''' varies enormously from one category to another. For instance, [[desktop computer|desktop]] and [[laptop]] computers used for web browsing are dominated by [[Microsoft Windows]], which has a usage share estimated to be around 90%, while [[Linux]] is quoted to have a share around 1%.<ref name="netapplications">{{cite web| url=http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10| title=Operating System Market Share| publisher=Net Applications}}</ref> In contrast, the complete reverse is true for the fastest [[supercomputer]]s.
Different categories of computers use a wide variety of [[operating system]]s, and the '''usage share''' varies enormously from one category to another. For instance, [[desktop computer|desktop]] and [[laptop]] computers used for web browsing are dominated by [[Microsoft Windows]], which has a usage share estimated to be around 90%, while [[Linux]] is quoted to have a share between 1%<ref name="netapplications">{{cite web| url=http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10| title=Operating System Market Share| publisher=Net Applications}}</ref> and 4.8%<ref name="W3Schools">{{cite web|url = http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp|title = OS Platform Statistics|accessdate = 2010-07-14|last = W3Schools}}</ref>. In contrast, the complete reverse is true for the fastest [[supercomputer]]s.


Information about operating systems share is difficult to obtain. In most of the categories below, there is no reliable primary source or methodology for its collection.
Information about operating systems share is difficult to obtain. In most of the categories below, there is no reliable primary source or methodology for its collection.

Revision as of 14:25, 17 July 2010

Template:OS marketshare Different categories of computers use a wide variety of operating systems, and the usage share varies enormously from one category to another. For instance, desktop and laptop computers used for web browsing are dominated by Microsoft Windows, which has a usage share estimated to be around 90%, while Linux is quoted to have a share between 1%[1] and 4.8%[2]. In contrast, the complete reverse is true for the fastest supercomputers.

Information about operating systems share is difficult to obtain. In most of the categories below, there is no reliable primary source or methodology for its collection.

Desktop and laptop computers

There is little published information on the usage share of desktop and laptop computers. Web client information (see below) is often used as a proxy for this, but many such computers are not used for web surfing. Web client stats suggest that Microsoft Windows has about a 91% share, Apple Mac OS 6% and Linux 1%. The correlation between desktop share and web client share is being increasingly challenged by the rise of mobile web access, which rose through 1% in 2009 and 2% in 2010.[3]

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft estimates Linux's share of desktop users to be higher than the web stats suggest. In a speech to investors in February 2009, Ballmer presented a slide based on Microsoft's research: it shows Linux's share of business and home PCs about the same as Apple's.[4][5]

A Forrester Research study of corporate desktop operating systems in 2009[6] found that:

Windows XP, while still king, is finally beginning its long-anticipated decline in the corporate PC market. Picking up ground are both Windows Vista, which now powers approximately 12% of Windows PCs, and Mac OS X, which has ramped up to an impressive 3.6%.

Web clients

The following information on web clients is obtained from the User agent information supplied to web servers by web browsers. This is an inexact science for a variety of reasons. For a discussion on the shortcomings see Usage share of web browsers.

The most recent data from various published sources during the last 12 months is summarized in the table below. (All of these sources monitor a substantial number of web sites. Statistics that relate to a single web site are excluded.)

Source Date Microsoft Windows Apple Linux Symbian
OS 		Black-
Berry
OS 		Other
7 Vista XP All
versions 		Mac
OS 		iOS main-
stream 		Android
AT Internet Institute [1] Apr. 2010 12.3% 22.4% 55.6% 91.9% 5.8% 0.9% 0.9% 0.5%
Clicky Web Analytics [2] Jun. 2010 16.32% 17.49% 47.32% 85.42% 10.64% 1.60% 1.36% 0.33% 0.08% 0.30% 0.27%
Net Applications [3] [4] Jun. 2010 13.70% 14.68% 62.43% 91.46% 5.16% 0.88% 1.07% 0.14% 0.25% 0.07% 1.04%
StatCounter [5] [6] [7] Jun. 2010 15.71% 18.26% 56.22% 90.87% 5.42% 0.69% 0.78% 0.10% 0.86% 0.38% 0.80%
StatOwl [8] Jun. 2010 15.69% 22.82% 48.33% 88.18% 11.18% 0.49% 0.15%
W3 Counter [9] Jun. 2010 15.76% 17.10% 49.98% 84.07% 6.25% 0.79% 1.71% 0.07% 7.11%
Webmasterpro [10] Jun. 2010 18.9% 21.7% 49.4% 92.1% 4.9% 1.1% 1.3% 0.09% 0.1% 0.01% 0.40%
Wikimedia [11] Jun. 2010 14.95% 20.57% 49.94% 86.32% 6.63% 1.97% 1.62% 0.26% 0.21% 0.41% 2.58%
Median Jun. 2010 15.70% 19.42% 49.96% 89.53% 6.03% 0.90% 1.19% 0.12% 0.21% 0.30% 0.65%

Notes:

  • The 'Other' column is obtained by summing Windows 'all versions' through BlackBerry OS and subtracting from 100%.
  • AT Internet Institute measures 23 European countries.
  • Clicky Web Analytics does not publish desktop/mobile split so StatCounter figure used in lieu. Figures are averages over last 7 days of month.
  • StatOwl measures predominantly US web sites with "broad appeal".[12] Stat for XP includes Server 2003. Excludes mobile usage.
  • W3Counter shows only the top ten operating systems and is based on the last 15,000 page views to each of over 38,000 web sites tracked.
  • Webmasterpro samples over 100,000 predominantly German-language sites. Figures are averages over last 7 days of month.
  • Wikimedia uses 1:1000 sampling of its logs when deriving the usage numbers. Stat for Vista includes Server 2008; XP includes Server 2003.
  • iOS figures include iPhone, iPod and iPad.
  • Mac OS X is broken down by four of the sources listed above and all of them show that version 10.6 (Snow Leopard) is the most widely used.
  • Clicky Web Analytics, StatOwl and Wikimedia indicate that Ubuntu has an order of magnitude more usage than any other identified desktop Linux distribution.

Netbooks and tablets

The netbook market has been dominated by Microsoft Windows, with Linux in second place.

Initially, Linux dominated the netbook market when Asus started it with the Eee PC in October 2007, but this lead did not last long. Asus and Acer, which accounted for 90% of the early netbook market, installed Linux on 30% of their machines.[7]

Microsoft responded by extending the life of XP. Figures from NPD Group showed Windows with over a 90% share of netbooks sold in the US between November 2008 and January 2009.[8]

In November 2009, an analyst at ABI said that of the 35 million netbooks to ship globally in 2009, 68% would have Windows and 32% Linux.[9]

According to DisplaySearch, netbooks and tablets rose from just under a 14% share of the overall portable computer market in third quarter of 2008 to around 20% in the second quarter of 2009, and remained at around 20% until the middle of 2010. During 2010, Apple's iPad tablet computer gained a 6.5% share of this market sector in the first quarter and DisplaySearch forecast this will rise to 30% in the second.[10]

Mobile devices

Market share of Smartphone operating systems as of Q2/2009 by Canalys.[11] (data does not include Palm WebOS, which was introduced in June, 2009)

Mobile operating systems that can be found on smartphones include Symbian OS, iOS, RIM's BlackBerry, Windows Mobile (marketed as Windows phone), Linux, Palm WebOS and Android. Android and WebOS are in turn built on top of Linux, and the iOS is derived from the BSD and NeXTSTEP operating systems, which all are related to Unix.

Source Date Symbian OS BlackBerry iOS Windows Mobile Linux based Other References
Android Linux Palm webOS
Gartner Q1 2010 44.3% 19.4% 15.4% 6.8% 9.6% 3.7% 0.7% [12]
Canalys Q3 2009 46.2% 20.6% 17.8% 8.8% 3.5% 3.2% [13]
Comscore May 2010 41.7% 24.4% 13.2% 13.0% 4.6% [14]
AdMob Aug 2009 34% 8% 40% 4% 7% 4% [15]
NPD Group Q1 2010 36% 21% 28% [16]
In-Stat 2009 44.0% 19.2% 19.8% 9.0% 4.5% 0.9% 2.6% [17]

Notes:

  • The above table is share of smartphone OS's - not overall marketshare.
  • Comscore numbers are US only
  • AdMob measures share of mobile advertisement served for mobile web browsing

Servers

Server market share can be measured by two methods - market share by revenue or market share by units. For example, according to IDC, Unix shipped only 4.4% of total server units in Q4 2009, but accounted for 29.9% of revenue at the same time.

Source Date Method Microsoft Windows Linux Unix Other References
All Unix BSD Solaris Other Unix
IDC Q4 2009 Units 73.9% 21.2% 4.4% [18]
IDC Q4 2009 Revenue 41.6% 14.7% 29.9% [19]
Gartner 2007 Revenue 66.8% 23.2% 6.8% [20][21]
Netcraft Jan 2009 Units 41.59% 41.02% 5.54% 3.30% 1.90% 0.34% 11.83% [22]

Notes:

  • Netcraft survey in January 2009 checked 1,014,301 publicly accessible Web servers with valid SSL certificates.

Mainframes

File:Mainframe server.svg

The hardware of the mainframe computer market is dominated by 90-95% of IBM System z[23].

Operating systems for IBM System z generation hardware include IBM's bundled proprietary z/OS[23], Linux on System z and as at October 7, 2008; 16 years ago (2008-10-07) the prototype OpenSolaris for System z.

Gartner reported on December 23, 2008; 16 years ago (2008-12-23) that Linux on System z was used on approximately 28% of the "customer z base" and that they expected this to increase to over 50% in the following five years.[24]

Of Linux on System z, Red Hat and Novell compete to sell RHEL and SLES respectively.

  • Prior to 2006, Novell claimed a market share of 85% or more.
  • Red Hat has since claimed 18.4% in 2007 and 37% in 2008.[25]
  • Gartner reported at the end of 2008 that Novell had an 80% share of mainframe Linux.[24]

Supercomputers

TOP500 Supercomputers Operating system Family share [26]

The TOP500 project lists and ranks the 500 fastest supercomputers that benchmark results are submitted for. It then publishes the collected data twice a year.

The June 2010 figures show Linux in the lead at 91.0%, followed by IBM AIX at 3.8%, Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 at 1.0% and OpenSolaris at 0.4%. A use of mixed operating systems accounts for 3.4%, and others account for 0.4%.[26][27]

Source Date Linux IBM AIX Windows HPC Server 2008 OpenSolaris References
TOP500 Jun. 2010 91.0% 3.8% 1.0% 0.4% [26][27]

References

  1. ^ "Operating System Market Share". Net Applications.
  2. ^ W3Schools. "OS Platform Statistics". Retrieved 2010-07-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_vs_desktop-ww-monthly-200812-201005
  4. ^ Wilcox, Joe (2009-02-24). "Microsoft CEO Scoffs at Mac Share Gains". eweek.com.
  5. ^ Holwerda, Thom (2009-02-25). "Ballmer: Linux Bigger Competitor than Apple". osnews.com.
  6. ^ "Corporate Desktop Operating System Trends, Q3 2008 To Q2 2009". Forrester Research. 2009-07-22.
  7. ^ Culpan, Tim; Bass, Dina (2008-11-06). "Microsoft Missing Netbook Growth as Linux Wins Sales (Update2)". Bloomberg.com.
  8. ^ Gralla, Preston (2009-03-03). "Study: Windows clobbers Linux on netbooks with over 90% share". computerworld.com.
  9. ^ Lai, Eric (2009-11-04). "Linux's share of netbooks surging, not sagging, says analyst". computerworld.com.
  10. ^ Smith, Tony (2010-06-17). "iPad gouges netbook sales". The Register. Retrieved 2010-06-17.
  11. ^ McLean, Prince (21 August 2009). "Canalys: iPhone outsold all Windows Mobile phones in Q2 2009". AppleInsider. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  12. ^ Miller, Matthew (2010-05-19). "Google Android smacks down Windows Mobile in latest Gartner data". ZDNet. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
  13. ^ "Smart phone market shows modest growth in Q3". 3 November 2009.
  14. ^ "comScore Reports May 2010 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share". Comscore. July 8, 2010.
  15. ^ "August 2009 Mobile Metrics Report" (PDF). September 30, 2009.
  16. ^ "Android Shakes Up U.S. Smartphone Market". May 10, 2010.
  17. ^ "Global market share for smart phone operating systems in 2009".
  18. ^ "Behind the IDC data: Windows still No. 1 in server operating systems". ZDNet. 2010-02-26.
  19. ^ "Worldwide Server Market Rebounds Sharply in Fourth Quarter as Demand for Blades and x86 Systems Leads the Way, According to IDC". IDC. 2010-02-24.
  20. ^ "Dataquest Insight: Operating System Software Market Share Analysis, Worldwide, 2007". Gartner.
  21. ^ Wakabayashi, Daisuke (2008-02-27). "Microsoft sees Windows gaining server market share". Reuters.
  22. ^ "Operating System Share by Groups for Sites in All Locations January 2009".
  23. ^ a b IBM Tightens Stranglehold Over Mainframe Market; Gets Hit with Antitrust Complaint in Europe --Computer & Communications Industry Association 2008-07-02 ccianet.org/IBM
  24. ^ a b "Vendor Rating: Novell, 2008". Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00162399. 2008-12-23. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  25. ^ Claybrook, Bill (2009-09-01). "Red Hat bolsters Linux for mainframes, tries to catch Novell". SearchDataCenter.com. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  26. ^ a b c "Operating system Family share for 06/2010". Top 500 project.
  27. ^ a b "Operating System share for 06/2010". Top 500 project.
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