Windows 7 gains OS market share while IE usage dips

January 4, 2011

Microsoft had a great 2010 with an increasing market share for their latest operating system, Windows 7. However, their Internet Explorer web browser didn’t fare quite so well against the competition.

Statistics released January 1^st shows that Windows 7 reached a 20.9% usage share in December. This was the operating system’s first time over the 20% mark, a milestone that its predecessor, Windows Vista, never reached.

Vista now sits at a 12.1 % market share, shows the report from by Net Applications, which has gradually fallen after peaking at 18.8% just over a year ago in October of 2009.

The big player for Microsoft, however, is still Windows XP despite Microsoft urging customers to upgrade. XP ended 2010 with a 56.7% share and isn’t expected to dip below 50% until sometime this fall.

The numbers weren’t as kind for the company’s Internet Explorer browser. Though the market share for the business-oriented browser typically falls during the Christmas and New Year holidays, when many corporate employees take personal and vacation time, December 2010 saw a 1.4% decline, the browser’s greatest one-month drop in two years.

IE still stands as the overall browser-of-choice, with a 57.1% total share, but a 5.6% overall drop in 2010 shows that web surfers are increasingly choosing the competition for the task. Firefox came in at a distant 2^nd place standing with 22.8% share, followed by Chrome with 10%, Safari at 5.9%, and Opera with 2.2% share.

Experts will be watching as Microsoft launches their IE9 release candidate, which will likely occur on January 28^th. The company now has some tough competition, especially with the increasing popularity of Chrome, which could reach a 16% share by October.

While I like Windows 7, and believe that Microsoft deserves a good market share in the operating system category, Internet Explorer has been off of my radar for years and only gets opened if I need to use it for now rare compatibility purposes. IE9 is going to need some pretty compelling features to gain back my business from Firefox and Chrome.