Windows May Not Monopolize Mobile, But It Still Dominates Worldwide

It seems as if there is a rush to downgrade the Windows operating system, declaring its an institution that has seen its pinnacle and is now in decline. Often, PC shipment rates are used to bolster these claims, and while we are clearly becoming a mobile device kind of world, to boast Windows is no longer relevant or not a player seems to come with oversight, or willfully ignoring a couple of things. The latest publication to claim Windows time has past is BusinessInsider.com with an article titled, “In Case You Don’t Appreciate How Fast The ‘Windows Monopoly’ Is Getting Destroyed…”

To make its point, the article makes use of three charts, one showing shipments of connected devices, another that shows the computing platform market share, and one shows PC shipment rates. While the PC shipment rates continues to be concern in regards to the Windows market share, or monopoly, if you will. The question remains, are people buying home computers–be they Mac or Windows machines–like they were a few years ago, or has the mobile device revolution, as well as longer-lasting computers, reduced the exponential growth the home computer market enjoyed throughout the late 90s/early 2000s as consumers tripped over themselves to get an Internet-capable device into their homes?

To make their point, the BI article offers such insight:

Microsoft’s “Windows monopoly” hasn’t been so much destroyed as rendered irrelevant. Thanks to the explosion of Internet-based cloud computing and smartphones, tablets, and other mobile gadgets, the once all-powerful platform of the desktop operating system has now been reduced to little more than a device driver. As long as your gadget can connect to the Internet and run some apps, it doesn’t matter what operating system you use.

While all of this may, in fact, be accurate–Microsoft, even though Windows Phone users seem to love their devices, was late to the party, and it shows. However, before Microsoft’s demise is cemented in stone, a couple of things are important to consider.

Mainly, the worldwide operating system breakdown:

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Operating System Market Share

According to these charts, between 77 and 81 percent of the world is running either Windows 7 or Windows XP, with another 5 percent going to unfortunate Windows 8 users. It should also be noted that all of the Mac OSX versions have less than an 8 percent share operating system-users, and that includes the combination of OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8. And then there’s Microsoft’s incredible success with their Xbox division. It should be noted that, despite all of the negative press surrounding the infamous Xbox One/E3 showing, the presale consoles are sold out just about everywhere.

So yeah, perhaps that entire “it’s over for Windows/Microsoft” line of thinking needs a little adjustment.