NetMarketShare finally find a level

After fiddling with their regional weighting for months in an effort to find an acceptably pro-Microsoft way of presenting their collected data, it looks like the folks at NetMarketShare have finally settled on one, and they're sticking with it. The revised version looks like this:

In a nutshell, Windows 10 continues to languish below 30%, Windows 7 continues its slow slide but still commands over 46% of the total OS market, and the "Other" category continues to increase, too, even if NetMarketShare are determined to manipulate their results to keep that number below double digits. The overall trend, though, is still really, really flat.

I have to say, I'm a little disappointed with NetMarketShare. Presented with raw data which clearly showed a shift in the OS market, they caved to outside pressure and tech journalists' expectations, and massaged that change out of their reports, with the clear result being that their results are now less credible. For nearly two years, NetMarketShare had reliably provided apples-to-apples month-to-month statistical comparisons, something which was hard to come by in a hype-filled landscape, but no longer.

I'll probably continue keeping an eye on the monthly stats, just to see how much higher the "Other" category creeps as the year progresses - even NMS's carefully re-weighted stats show five straight months of gains for the category, and I still expect it to eventually hit double digits. It's a bit of a shame, though, that the tech media will be steadfastly ignoring this change as it happens, making no effort at all to figure out what exactly is going on under the surface, and why.

 

UPDATE:

Tech media outlets, perhaps predictably, have decided to run with StatCounter's numbers instead, which routinely tell a more Windows 10-friendly story... and which therefore mesh much more neatly with the pre-established narrative.

WCCFTech have probably the most balanced take:

It appears November 2017 might be the month finally putting an end to the dominance of Windows 7. According to latest stats from StatCounter, the user-favorite operating system from Redmond has seen a drop of 1.32 percentage points last month, now sitting at the market share of 42.67 percent. In comparison, Windows 10 got an additional 1.65 percent of Windows market share, helping it narrow the gap with Windows 7. The newest operating system is now at 40.95 percent.

Since this growth/decline rate has been going on for the past several months, it is highly likely that the next stats that arrive in December will see Windows 10 finally topping the charts. Add in the latest push that reports of Microsoft ending its free upgrade offer may have caused, the growth rate of Windows 10 might even be faster than it has been lately.

These numbers, however, are in contrast with NetMarketShare – another firm that provides operating system and browser market share data. The analyst firm reported that October was the slowest month for Windows 10 growth as it only added 0.17 percentage points to its market share. The firm has put the operating system at 29.26 percent in comparison to Windows 7’s 46.63 percent.

So, Windows 10 is (yet again) about to overtake Windows 7 any day now... unless it isn't. Apparently it depends on who you ask, on what day you ask them, and the extent to which they're pandering to your expectations. Meaning that we basically have no idea what's going on in the OS market, anymore.

I stand by my earlier assertion that the pre-existing narrative is the absolute bane of responsible journalism.