A quick note on StatCounter

Microsoft's supporters have been quick to seize on StatCounter's version of the month's numbers, which show a much rosier picture for Microsoft, choosing to ignore NetMarketShare (and the Linux Shift that stubbornly keeps showing up in their data) almost entirely. Wayne Williams at betanews made an interesting comment about this phenomenon:

Before we get into it, it's important to note that StatCounter's numbers are reported differently from NetMarketShare's, because they just break down Windows's share, whereas NetMarketShare's numbers include other operating systems, such as different flavors of macOS and Linux.

[...]

Taking an average of the last three months, StatCounter has Windows 10 overtaking Windows 7 in December, while NetMarketShare doesn’t have that happening until next September.

Neither agree with Microsoft’s figures, which claimed the big event happened 10 months ago.

We'll know in a couple of months whether StatCounter is right on the money, or completely out to lunch; it's possible that Windows 7 could lose enough users to Linux to put them at parity with Windows 10, without Windows 10 actually growing much. This shift in the market is being widely reported as Windows 10 "catching up" to Windows 7, but it might be more a case of Windows 7 running out of gas, while Linux comes up quickly from behind to catch both of them.

When people tell you that Windows 10 is making huge gains in the marketplace, though, remember that there is no evidence yet to support that conclusion. It is, in a word, hype. Never believe the hype.

Déjà vu, all over again

So, just like last month, when NetMarketShare balked at reporting what their data was clearly telling them, they've once again massaged their stats and reposted them. And, as expected, the result is a slightly smaller swing than their earlier posted stats indicated.

The old version put Windows' overall OS market share at 82.2%, and "Other" (a.k.a. Linux) at 13.04%. The new version looks like this:

This version of the numbers puts Windows at 86.21% overall, with Windows 7 declining to 46.22% (-2.21%), and Windows 10 increasing to 28.65% (+0.66%). Linux, meanwhile, gained 2.15% to finish at 9.99% overall. That 86.21% number is especially interesting; it's almost exactly what NetMarketShare had originally reported as Windows' overall market position in their first version of last month's stats.

While this new analysis of their data shows a smaller swing from Windows to Linux, it still does show a swing from Windows to Linux, and a big one. Especially in light of Satya Nadella's recent remarks, downplaying the importance of Windows to Microsoft, it seems that the Linux Shift is actually a thing. We're not left wondering whether or not it's happening, only how quickly... and, of course, why now?

I fully expect that next month's stats will show a continuation of this same trend. Windows 10's growth is still sluggish; breathless reports that it would overtake Windows 7 in a matter of months are missing the point. Yes, Windows 7's user base appears to be changing operating systems, but they're not migrating to Windows 10 -- they're migrating away from Windows altogether, and trend which Microsoft are already trying to downplay the importance of. We could be months away from a market in which Windows 7, Windows 10, and Linux split the market more-or-less evenly between them.

What impact that might have on the world of desktop computing is impossible to say. Microsoft's Windows has been so dominant on desktops for so long that it's difficult to imagine what the world of desktop PCs will look like when that dominance comes to an end. One thing is becoming increasingly clear, though; Windows' dominance on the desktop is coming to an end, and sooner than anyone ever thought possible.

Once again, I will preserve both of my posts on this topic, in order to preserve NetMarketShare's originally-posted evidence of the nascent Linux Shift as it progresses. I have the feeling that this same sequence of events will play out again in November, and in December, and in January, and at some point, the limitations of regression analysis will simply not be able to mask the evidence of the Shift anymore. How Microsoft's supporters react on that day will be interesting to see.

Linux gains again

Netmarketshare's end-of-September numbers are up, and they're very, very interesting.


The part that Microsoft's apologists will almost certainly latch onto is the pronounced dip in the graph's top trend line. That's Windows 7, losing 2.81% and dropping to 45.62% overall. That is a clear drop, and it marks Windows 7's lowest point in two years, but where things get interesting is with the next trend line down. That's Windows 10, which also lost 2.48%, dropping it to 25.51% overall, Windows 10's lowest point since January (XP and 8.1 also lost share, although neither have much farther to fall, so their declines are below my ±0.5% noise threshold).

So, if both of Windows' most popular versions are losing market share, who's gaining?

MacOS managed a small uptick, gaining 0.52% to hit 4.11% overall, but the big mover is "Other," which picked up 5.20% to land at 13.04% overall. "Other," of course, means "Linux," so that puts Linux's various distros' combined share of the market into double digit territory for the first time ever. Windows 10's share of Windows PCs did increase a bit (to 31.03%, from 28.81%), but Windows 7's share of the Windows-PC market also increased (to 55.49%, from 54.68%), so even excluding Linux from the picture doesn't help Microsoft much.

The news here for Windows is all bad.