Every few months Tech Tripp reviews over the current desktop operating system market share. One thing that continues to surprise is the large hold Microsoft Windows XP maintains. As of September 2013 Windows XP still maintained a 31.42% market share. I foresee a mad rush end of year and Q1 2014 to get all machines upgrades. The question remains, what operating system should they move to? Well, Windows 8 has been unfortunately met with much frustration and gainsaying. This hatred is not unfounded. As a result of the lack of adoption and user complaints Microsoft released Windows 8.1 this month. While 8.1 addresses many issues and flaws found in Windows 8 it is still not ideal and does have a steep learning curve.

The big problem lies with early adopters. Those who adopted Windows 8 are now forced to upgrade to Windows 8.1 as Microsoft has recently announced the shortest life cycle of any desktop operating system they have ever released – 2-years. Users of Windows 8 will have to upgrade to the new 8.1 version within the next two years, as technical support for the older variation will then be terminated. Windows 8 has plenty of new features that sets it apart but enterprise adoption will continue to be slow, really slow. Windows 8 is gaining market share at 0.3 percent a month.

What about Mac and Linux? Windows is still found on 91.56 percent of desktops, according to the figures, while Linux OS had 1.25 percent share and Mac OS X 7.19 percent.

Sources: http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0