Windows Plummets In Global Computing Market, Android Takes Over

While we know Windows based operating systems dominates the “desktop market” with around 91% of market share, the world of computing is much more than that. It includes tablets, smartphones, consoles, servers and so on. With the dramatic decline of PC shipments over the past years and rapid growth of other mobile computing platforms, Windows has been having a hard time. If we take those things into consideration then Business Insider, using Gartner and IDC analytics, suggests that Windows has been plummeting at a staggering rate over the past 4 years.

As the graph demonstrates since 2009 Apple and Android have eaten into the share of most other operating systems including Windows, Blackberry and other Linux based operating systems. Now Android is the single biggest operating system and Apple operating systems are nearly as popular as Windows based ones. With the broader picture in place things look quite dire for Microsoft and Windows. It is no surprise Microsoft are trying really hard to make it big in the mobile market with their Windows Phone OS and close ties with Nokia. Yet that is clearly not working and Microsoft’s decline will continue unless they can find a way to boost the popularity of Windows or cash in on the tablet or PC market.

In terms of the desktop market Microsoft has been losing ground slowly over the same time period but to a much smaller extent. Currently it has 91.5% market share compared to around 7% for Mac OS X and 1.5% for Linux. This has declined from around 94% in 2009. With all things considered then, Microsoft is losing ground in the desktop market and losing huge ground in the global computing market. Things certainly aren’t looking good. What do you think about Microsoft’s fortunes? Are the figures portraying the situation accurately or does it exaggerate things?

Image courtesy of Business Insider