It’s not exactly a new piece of information that Windows 8 isn’t rocking the market, but even six months after its release Windows 8 continues to be one of the least used operating systems worldwide.
According to StatCounter, which pulls its information from over three million websites, Windows 8 is only being used in 4.69% of PCs worldwide. This is even below Vista users, which take up 6.06% of the PC space.
I find it is simply mind-blowing that it could do worse than Vista today. Vista was released with a lot of hype and gained a large userbase fairly quickly, though much of that userbase found themselves unhappy with their decision. Windows 8 didn’t get the same courtesy of decent launch numbers, and it’s hard to say whether or not it will go down in PC history as the next Vista-level failure.
If it’s still behind in another six months, we will probably be seeing another OS release entirely or an overhaul service pack that gives users the familiar Windows experience they expect from their personal computers.
On a slightly lighter note..
Windows 7 is still dominating the PC space, with a whopping 53.89% of users making use of the OS. As usual, Windows XP is still in second and is being used by 27.7% of computer users.
XP is perhaps the most long-lasting operating system to date. It may not be prime for triple-A gaming these days with its gimp-legged 64bit support, but it is still popular among businesses and used frequently overseas for less intensive gaming. We’ll see where 7’s longevity is in comparison to XP in five years.
