It's not just the first day of 2017, it's also the first day of a whole new month, which means NetMarketShare has posted new OS Market Share numbers for the month just ended.
To recap, the end of November/start of December looked like this:
The end of December/start of January, however, looks like this:
Oddly, Windows XP also ticked up slightly after ticking downward last month, but since that's been XP's pattern for several months now, it's probably also just statistical noise at this point; Linux also ticked down slightly after ticking up last month, which is also likely to be noise in NetMarketShare's data.
The only OS version showing what looks like a meaningful shift is OS X El Capitan (10.11), which dropped 0.38% while MacOS Sierra (10.12) gained 0.10% -- again, not exactly a shift from 10.11 to 10.12, and 10.12's uptick is in the same sub-1% range as the likely noise that we're seeing for other OS versions.
So, what does it all mean? Here's my take.
With Windows 7 & 8 no longer available for purchase, we're not going to see any significant gains for either OS, but Windows 10 is not rushing in to fill the gap, either. People are just not switching, now that switching isn't free anymore, and they're not buying new PCs, either, and I'm not expecting the upcoming Creator's Update to cause a significant in shift either trend, especially after the bungled Anniversary Update rollout left such a bad taste in so many mouths.
A fresh year might mean fresh budgets for both business and governmental IT departments, but the economy is not so robust (anywhere, really) for IT departments to be planning to buy all new hardware for their users, and that seems to be the only way that new Windows 10 installations are happening. Microsoft had made avoiding GWX nearly impossible for non-technically savvy users, too, meaning that there's no-one using Windows 7 who doesn't know a thing or two about their PCs... which probably also means that a fair few IT professionals are included in their numbers, something which, if true, will complicate Redmond's efforts to push Win10 onto enterprise PCs to no end.
Windows 10 has, by hook and by crook, achieved a significant footprint in the OS marketplace, so it can't be deemed a failure, exactly, but new gains are going to come very slowly from here on out, which spells trouble for a company that went all in on an entirely new way of doing every aspect of their business. Windows 7, meanwhile, is looking to be every bit the new XP that Microsoft clearly feared it would be, steadily and stubbornly occupying a huge chunk of the OS landscape, with users who are simply refusing to abandon a perfectly functional OS unless and until they absolutely must.
It seems inarguable now that Microsoft did a lot of damage to their own brand and reputation with the GWX campaign, and while they're finally starting to acknowledge that simple fact, the damage remains well and truly done; it doesn't look like users are in much of a rush to embrace anything new from Microsoft, regardless of the hype behind it. The hard part, for Redmond, is that gaining consumers' trust is not easy, and regaining it, after pissing it away, is even harder. I'm not saying that it's not possible, but it's going to take a lot more than a mildly self-pitying statement from their CMO to shift hearts and minds that have been hardening against them for more than a year now.
Do they have it in them, to do more? I guess we'll see. We're still awaiting details of the deal that they're doing with CNIL to avoid regulatory penalties in France, which will probably be our first hint of just how much Redmond is willing to change their struggling corporate strategy, but I have a feeling that they'll need to do more than just the legally-required minimum in order to truly turn things around; right now, simple inertia has Windows 10 stalled in its own tracks, and Windows 7 digging in for a long, long stay. If they want to change that narrative, then Satya Nadella's team have a lot of work to do, work with only gets harder, the longer they wait to start doing it.
Do they have it in them, to do more? I guess we'll see. We're still awaiting details of the deal that they're doing with CNIL to avoid regulatory penalties in France, which will probably be our first hint of just how much Redmond is willing to change their struggling corporate strategy, but I have a feeling that they'll need to do more than just the legally-required minimum in order to truly turn things around; right now, simple inertia has Windows 10 stalled in its own tracks, and Windows 7 digging in for a long, long stay. If they want to change that narrative, then Satya Nadella's team have a lot of work to do, work with only gets harder, the longer they wait to start doing it.
UPDATE:
Here's another take on these same numbers, from betanews:Windows 10 enters 2017 not with a bang, but a whimper
[...]
December should have been a great month for Windows 10, with people buying new PCs for the holidays, but actually it was a pretty lackluster month in which the new OS’s gains were minimal, and way less than those enjoyed by the aging Windows 7.
Microsoft’s own numbers claim Windows 10 leapfrogged Windows 7 to become the most successful operating system in August, but NetMarketShare’s usage numbers paint a very different picture.
According to the analyst firm, in December Windows 10 went from 23.72 percent to 24.36 percent, a gain of 0.63 percentage points.
In the same month however, Windows 7 went from 47.17 percent to 48.34 percent, a gain of 1.17 percentage points.
In other words, NetMarketShare’s figures show Windows 7 still being twice as popular as Windows 10 globally.
Windows XP also enjoyed a bump in users over the holiday period, gaining 0.44 percentage points, to put it on 9.07 percent. That means it’s back to being more popular than Windows 8.x.
[...]
What does 2017 hold in store for Windows 10? Well, we have the Creators Update to look forward to in spring which promises some welcome new features and improvements -- such as the ability to pause system updates -- but there’s nothing really there to convince anyone who hasn’t yet upgraded to pull the trigger.