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PCWorld Says Firefox is Strong, Vista is Weak

Journal written by twitter (104583) and posted by Zonk on Sunday December 30, @05:44PM
from the not-inaccurate dept.
twitter writes "PC World has released their year in review statistics and 2007 was not kind to Microsoft. IE 6 users are equally likely to move to Firefox as they are to IE7 and no one wants Vista. 'How much of an accomplishment is it for a new version of Windows to get to 14 percent usage in 11 months? The logical benchmark is to compare it to the first eleven months of Windows XP, back in 2001 and 2002. In that period, that operating system went from nothing to 36 percent usage on PCWorld.com--more than 250 percent of the usage that Vista has mustered so far.'"

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  • benchmark? (Score:3, Funny)

    by rainman_bc (735332) on Sunday December 30, @05:49PM (#21859882)

    ? The logical benchmark is to compare it to the first eleven months of Windows XP, back in 2001 and 2002.
    I'd say it's probably better to compare to Windows ME than XP...
    • Re:benchmark? (Score:4, Informative)

      by thatskinnyguy (1129515) on Sunday December 30, @06:04PM (#21860018)
      At least every time I've installed Vista the disk preparation utilities worked like a charm. ME on the other hand, I had to mess around with a Win 98 boot disk.
      Also, the only problems I can find from a user perspective in Vista is that UAC is annoying as hell. With ME, I would have systemic problems right off the bat. That OS was just plain junk right off the bat. Nothing anyone could do could make it work right. The annoyances with Vista can at least be fixed with unchecking a few boxes.
      • Re:benchmark? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30, @07:02PM (#21860442)
        You don't find that Vista is a sluggish piece of crap? With 2GB of RAM, a damn fast Core 2 Duo, and a 256MB G70 video card, I find the interface chugs along after installing a few perfectly normal programs. XP is a dream in comparison.
        • Re:benchmark? by thatskinnyguy (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @08:07PM
          • Re:benchmark? by sdiz (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @09:40PM
          • Re:benchmark? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by peektwice (726616) on Sunday December 30, @09:47PM (#21861532)
            It's unfreakingbelievable to me that you consider it normal for your CPU to idle at 11% usage, whether it's XP or Vista. I know it's not a direct linear translation, but think of it this way: 330MHz of your 3GHz CPU are being wasted all the time. Why anyone settles for this type of mediocrity or accepts it as normal is beyond me.
            • Re:benchmark? by toddestan (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @09:52PM
            • Re:benchmark? (Score:5, Informative)

              by Kalriath (849904) on Sunday December 30, @09:55PM (#21861574)
              Not everyone does experience that. I have a 3.2GHz P4 with 1GB RAM and Vista runs fine with CPU idling at 0%-1% (although the 0% obviously isn't really 0%)

              The poster you're replying to either has issues with their PC/setup, Norton, or mistakenly included the spike caused by Task Manager starting.
              • Re:benchmark? by thatskinnyguy (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @10:15PM
              • Re:benchmark? by wampus (Score:2) Monday December 31, @01:31AM
              • Re:benchmark? by hairyfeet (Score:3) Monday December 31, @02:45AM
            • Re:benchmark? by Planesdragon (Score:1) Monday December 31, @12:40AM
              • Re:benchmark? by ozmanjusri (Score:2) Monday December 31, @01:15AM
              • Re:benchmark? by cheater512 (Score:2) Monday December 31, @03:11AM
              • Re:benchmark? by Macthorpe (Score:2) Monday December 31, @04:16AM
              • Re:benchmark? (Score:4, Informative)

                by cheater512 (783349) <nick@nickstallman.net> on Monday December 31, @04:27AM (#21863760) Homepage
                Defragging doesnt use much cpu at all - it just thrashes the hard drive.
                It also does not run when idle. When defragging the disk state cannot change at all so running when idle isnt ideal.

                Where did you pull the indexing bit from? Your ass?
                The indexing service only indexes the filesystem. It has nothing to do with the speed programs load.
                Also its recommended that you disable it because it sucks at what it does. It doesnt help file searches at all.
                Although it could account for the 11% idle usage, its certainly not a good thing.
              • Re:benchmark? by Macthorpe (Score:3) Monday December 31, @05:06AM
              • Re:benchmark? by cheater512 (Score:2) Monday December 31, @05:25AM
              • Re:benchmark? by Macthorpe (Score:3) Monday December 31, @05:50AM
              • Re:benchmark? by gazbo (Score:1) Monday December 31, @06:18AM
              • Re:benchmark? by cheater512 (Score:2) Monday December 31, @06:55AM
              • Re:benchmark? by cheater512 (Score:1) Monday December 31, @08:45AM
              • Re:benchmark? by SenorCitizen (Score:2) Monday December 31, @08:47AM
              • Re:benchmark? by gazbo (Score:1) Monday December 31, @09:24AM
              • Re:benchmark? by WeeLad (Score:2) Monday December 31, @10:38AM
              • Re:benchmark? by sgt scrub (Score:2) Monday December 31, @11:53AM
            • Re:benchmark? by tshak (Score:2) Monday December 31, @12:48PM
          • Re:benchmark? by T-Bone-T (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:59PM
          • 7%!?!! by milsoRgen (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @11:11PM
            • Re:7%!?!! by thatskinnyguy (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @11:24PM
              • Re:7%!?!! by cheater512 (Score:2) Monday December 31, @03:15AM
              • Re:7%!?!! by cnettel (Score:2) Monday December 31, @12:26PM
          • Re:benchmark? by Le T800 (Score:1) Monday December 31, @04:06AM
          • Vista takes time to settle? by Per Abrahamsen (Score:2) Monday December 31, @07:09AM
          • Re:benchmark? by ncc74656 (Score:2) Wednesday January 02, @07:33PM
          • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:benchmark? (Score:4, Funny)

          by sarixe (1094661) <sarixe@gmail.com> on Sunday December 30, @09:33PM (#21861428)
          my boss has a dell running with a high-end intel core 2 duo (3ghz, i believe), 4gb ram, and ati x1k. it is a cheetah among computers, and vista makes it run like an oversized snail making its way across fields of molasses.
          • Re:benchmark? by Skrynkelberg (Score:1) Monday December 31, @03:53AM
            • Re:benchmark? by Ender_Stonebender (Score:3) Monday December 31, @09:05AM
        • Re:benchmark? by sgt scrub (Score:2) Monday December 31, @11:44AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:benchmark? by pembo13 (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @07:09PM
        • Re:benchmark? by flyingfsck (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @07:21PM
          • Re:benchmark? by sgt scrub (Score:2) Monday December 31, @12:14PM
        • Re:benchmark? by sgt scrub (Score:2) Monday December 31, @12:09PM
      • Re:benchmark? by morgan_greywolf (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @07:36PM
        • Re:benchmark? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Calmiche (531074) on Sunday December 30, @07:58PM (#21860862)
          You know, when Windows XP came out, it was fairly slow and bloated. So was Windows 98. It wasn't the software, it was the available hardware. (Not that I'm defending Vista. I can't stand Vista. I've tried it twice now, the first for a month and just last month for two weeks with a new beta SP1. Nasty.)

          I don't know if Vista is redeemable. I'm going to have to wait at least until SP2 before I want to try again.

          That should be by late 2009. So, imagine double the processor power, with an 8 core processor, a solid state disk and at least 64 gig of RAM. If Microsoft gets their butts in gear and start listening to their customers, SP2 might be something worthwhile. We shall see how it works out.
          • Re:benchmark? (Score:5, Funny)

            by andruk (1132557) on Sunday December 30, @08:25PM (#21861018)
            "If Microsoft gets their butts in gear and start listening to their customers..."

            So, you mean, never?
            • Re:benchmark? (Score:4, Interesting)

              by smilindog2000 (907665) <bill@billrocks.org> on Monday December 31, @04:13AM (#21863704) Homepage
              I wish I had mod points to up your funny score... For years in the late 80's and early 90's, I was dumb enough to call Microsoft customer support on occasion. It was a 100% waste of time, a truly unbelievable record of failed customer support. Then I discovered that the Dell customer support guys knew practically everything about Windows and it's popular applications, and they'd answer just about any technical question you had. I suspect they did more Microsoft support than Dell hardware support. All that ended when Dell fired their US based support staff and off-shored support to India. Now days, I just run Ubuntu. If I need support, I just use Google. I'm sure Windows users are also quite helpful on the web, but I have to say I absolutely love the community support hovering around Ubuntu.

              I suspect that Vista may be the result of Microsoft's aging. In the 90's, when the core of XP was built (NT back then - I was a big fan), Microsoft was growing at an insane pace. Much of the best talent (the kind Google gets now days) went to Microsoft. With that kind of success, XP was a natural result. With the web bust, and with the best talent often going elsewhere, and with Bill Gates effectively retired, Vista may be the natural result. I'm not sure I'd hold my breath waiting for Vista to become as good as XP.
          • Re:benchmark? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by ShieldW0lf (601553) on Sunday December 30, @08:47PM (#21861134) Journal
            The fact that the market forced vendors to begin offering XP as an option after they had shifted support to the new version of Windows is unprecedented.

            This would be a pretty strong indicator that the market is not "satisfied that Win XP is good enough for their needs" like the article suggests, but that a significant segment are actively rejecting Vista as a bad product even on a brand new computer.

            Which, of course, it is. Microsoft saw the writing on the wall, and they cashed in their chips. Which means, they saw that it was time to sell their install base out to third party interests instead of trying to keep hold of them.

            We've all seen situations where the value of a good name is measured in how long it's purchaser can sell substandard goods at high markup before the name isn't good anymore.

            That's what this is. The industry decided to back "Trusted Computing" despite it being contrary to the interests of consumers, and no one wants to buy it. That's why the new drivers don't work, why the old software is buggy, etc. The common person doesn't know why, but they know it's not working right, and they don't like it.
            • Re:benchmark? (Score:5, Interesting)

              by daeg (828071) on Sunday December 30, @09:29PM (#21861406)
              I'd love to see statistics showing the number of Vista purchases vs. Vista usage. I started my job about a year ago and we had around 10 machines purchased before I took over purchasing and they had Vista. Once I had time, I replaced them all with Windows XP -- I didn't bother trying to get replacements from our vendor, it was easier/quicker just to buy XP Pro outright from an OEM supplier. I know I'm not the only one that's replaced Vistas with XP.

              What percentage of Vista sales aren't permanent users?
              • Re:benchmark? (Score:4, Informative)

                by lxrocks (1205598) on Sunday December 30, @10:56PM (#21862040)
                I believe that OEM XP is out of production Jan 1, 2008. So if you want any more, you had better go an buy some quick. Have you taken a good look at the new Notebooks on offer ... I just got burnt with a Compaq v6620 - no XP drivers available. You can install XP, and it boots, but kiss the Lan, Wlan, Video, Audio good bye. No XP drivers - only vista and linux. So what does that tell you - Vista will be rammed down your throught whether you like it or not. Eventually, all new kit will be running Vista, because the Manufacturers won't be cutting any XP drivers for them!
              • Re:benchmark? by davidsyes (Score:2) Monday December 31, @01:12AM
              • Re:benchmark? by cheater512 (Score:2) Monday December 31, @03:19AM
              • Re:benchmark? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Monday December 31, @05:38AM
              • Re:benchmark? by theheadlessrabbit (Score:1) Tuesday January 01, @09:21AM
              • Re:benchmark? by jascat (Score:2) Monday December 31, @12:42AM
              • Re:benchmark? by ozmanjusri (Score:3) Monday December 31, @01:26AM
              • Re:benchmark? by davidsyes (Score:2) Monday December 31, @01:35AM
              • Re:benchmark? by MojoStan (Score:3) Monday December 31, @09:06AM
              • Re:benchmark? by Just Some Guy (Score:2) Wednesday January 02, @01:47PM
              • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:benchmark? by WinterSolstice (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @09:15PM
          • Re:benchmark? by jcuervo (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @10:14PM
          • Re:benchmark? by Sandbags (Score:2) Monday December 31, @10:21AM
        • Re:benchmark? by thatskinnyguy (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @08:03PM
          • Re:benchmark? by Tony Hoyle (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:20PM
      • Slowness can't be fixed with a check box.... by Crazy Taco (Score:3) Monday December 31, @01:23AM
      • Re:benchmark? by Jeruvy (Score:1) Tuesday January 08, @02:32PM
      • Re:benchmark? by yoyhed (Score:2) Monday December 31, @04:18AM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:benchmark? by purpledinoz (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @06:08PM
      • Re:benchmark? by HiThere (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @07:12PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:benchmark? by donaldm (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:03PM
        • Re:benchmark? by Tony Hoyle (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:23PM
    • This Vista thing is an MS strategy by Crazy Taco (Score:2) Monday December 31, @01:46AM
    • Re:benchmark? by renoX (Score:2) Monday December 31, @10:41AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Vista a Flop? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz (883997) on Sunday December 30, @05:50PM (#21859886)
    Well, I guess posting something brutally obvious is better than posting another dupe.

    *shrug*
  • As for the Mac stat... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stewbacca (1033764) on Sunday December 30, @05:54PM (#21859928)
    Wouldn't the number of people using Macs be lower than average, since they were measuring visitors to a PC-centric website?
  • Naming? (Score:5, Funny)

    by niceone (992278) * on Sunday December 30, @05:55PM (#21859930) Journal
    Of course a flaming fox is going to be stronger than a view. MS should have thought up a better name than Vista. Something that could beat foxes and fire - how about: Ice weasel?
    • Re:Naming? by Ai Olor-Wile (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @06:00PM
      • Re:Naming? by vonart (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @08:10PM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Naming? (Score:5, Funny)

      by NotAgent86 (888079) on Sunday December 30, @06:03PM (#21860010)
      I always thought it was an acronym - Virus Infections, Spyware, Trojans and Adware
      • Re:Naming? by syousef (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @07:26PM
      • Re:Naming? by Anonymous Brave Guy (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @10:05PM
        • Re:Naming? by jthill (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @11:21PM
      • Close... by governorx (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @10:17PM
      • Re:Naming? by Viceroy Potatohead (Score:2) Monday December 31, @12:05AM
    • Re:Naming? by lucabrasi999 (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @06:13PM
      • Re:Naming? by Tony Hoyle (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:32PM
        • Re:Naming? by wed128 (Score:2) Monday December 31, @10:04AM
    • Re:Naming? by AB3A (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @06:16PM
      • Re:Naming? by icegreentea (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @06:47PM
        • Re:Naming? by cp.tar (Score:2) Monday December 31, @05:00AM
    • Ice Weasel? by antdude (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:15PM
  • recession (Score:5, Funny)

    by BobZee1 (1065450) on Sunday December 30, @05:55PM (#21859938) Journal
    Could the United States being in a state of recession have anything to do with Vista's slow growth? Just kidding, I know Vista is TERRIBLE. My karma is bad and I wish it wasn't. I don't want to have bad karma. I am a good person.
    • Re:recession by canuck57 (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @08:12PM
    • Re:recession by h3llfish (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @09:37PM
    • Re:recession by the_womble (Score:2) Monday December 31, @12:45AM
      • Re:recession by Hal_Porter (Score:1) Monday December 31, @01:51AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30, @05:57PM (#21859962)
    People can come up with statistics to prove anything, fourty percent of all people know that.
  • Poor comparison (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RealGrouchy (943109) on Sunday December 30, @06:00PM (#21859978)
    Assuming the summary is correct...

    They're comparing usage based on visits to their website. Not only that, but they're comparing uptake of Vista in 2007 to XP in 2001. As a percentage.

    I can't help but feel that a lot has changed over that time to make that method of comparison completely irrelevant, both in terms of MS's operations (like how Vista follows a fairly strong OS that has had years to take root, compared with XP, which followed Windows Me, which sucked in every possible way) and in terms of the overall PC market (like how Macs are much more competitive, and how Linux has matured, but mostly how so many hardware and software has been developed for Windows XP).

    - RG>
    • Re:Poor comparison by jawtheshark (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @06:18PM
      • Re:Poor comparison (Score:5, Informative)

        by TheNetAvenger (624455) on Sunday December 30, @06:40PM (#21860292)
        They all were great within the time the lived. XP was NEVER a decendant of ME. Learn your OS history, please.

        Although you are 'technically' correct that Windows 2000 was released between WinME and XP, what is being missed in this argument is that WindowsXP was the FIRST version of the NT based OS that was focused on and designed to specifically replace the consumer level DOS/Win9x OSes.

        You are correct that XP is not descended from Win9x or WinME in any way, it is an NT based OS with NO code used from the Win9x era of OSes. (It is was as much of a jump from Win9X/WinME as System 9 was to OS X).

        In regard to the article, this is also why the uptake of WinXP was faster than even Windows 2000, as Windows 2000 was the successor to NT4 and was not pushed to home or mainstream consumer users. XP being the first NT version that was designed for and pushed into the mainstream consumer markets had quite an advantage even though Win2K users ignorantly thumbed their noses at it. In contrast to the generation of consumer OSes it was replacing, it was a massive difference in terms of performance and stability. XP not only ran faster than Win98 (the fastest of the DOS/Win9x generation), but it also was significantly more stable and secure than the previous OSes that had no knowledge of any type of security.

        So for consumers and home users, XP was good jump, and even just upgrading Win98 or WinME to XP would not only increase the lifetime of the computer, but would fix technical problems in the installation wihtout having to wipe settings, and gave the users a virtually crash free experience.
      • Re:Poor comparison by gatzke (Score:3) Sunday December 30, @06:45PM
        • Re:Poor comparison by TheRaven64 (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @07:20PM
        • Re:Poor comparison by FrankSchwab (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @07:26PM
        • Re:Poor comparison (Score:4, Informative)

          by schnikies79 (788746) on Sunday December 30, @07:29PM (#21860638)
          I never used nt 3.51 or 4.0 regularly, but I did w2k and xp.

          I NEVER get blue screens, ever, end of story. If you get blue screens with XP, something is wrong and it's not the OS.

          2000 is absolutely rock-solid stable, as is w2k.
        • Re:Poor comparison (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ConceptJunkie (24823) * on Sunday December 30, @07:45PM (#21860760) Homepage Journal
          I used NT 3.51 and it was rock solid in my experience. So was NT 4, at least until SP2 came around. Windows 2000 was also reasonably stable and has proved to have great longevity... my kids still use it because the machine it runs on blue screens when trying to install XP. XP was better, especially by the time SP2 came around. The NT side of Windows never suffered from huge stability issues, and even when it did 90% of the time it was obviously and directly related to hardware drivers. No, the NT line was never perfect and there were features and bugs that would drive any user insane, but overall they were decent products that were worth the upgrades.

          Until Vista came around, each new version offered significant improvements, required significantly more resources, added some quirky problems but was overall an improvement. The problem is that with Windows 2000, MS pretty much solved all their major problems (besides security, but that could be mitigated by a little bit of common sense, despite the horrible track record of security issues). By XP SP2, even security issues were starting to be not so severe. The biggest changes between 2000 and XP were minor UI tweaks (and the ugliest theme ever put on a GUI since Tandy DeskMate, but that could be turned off, and was turned off, by anyone who realized it could be), and support for new hardware, especially wireless, which didn't really become "nice" until SP2 came along. All Vista really needed to do was support the newest hardware, throw a little eye candy in (because you always need a little eye candy in a new release) and fix some of the many problems that will always plague any OS and it would have sold like hotcakes. Instead we got a Frankenstein monster of an OS that looks and feels like it was designed and written by Cold-War Era East German government employees, with more bloat than the U.S. Tax Code and fewer useful new features than the, well, the U.S. Tax Code.

          IMO, Microsoft has been growing beyond their capacity to manage themselves since the early 90's and they have finally reached the point where they are so large they literally cannot do anything right. Just like the U.S. government, MS is so huge, bloated, mismanaged and downright corrupt, the only way it can possibly be improved is for 95% of it to simply go away.

        • Re:Poor comparison by the_greywolf (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:18PM
        • Re:Poor comparison by Tony Hoyle (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:35PM
        • Re:Poor comparison by brinebold (Score:1) Monday December 31, @01:08AM
        • Re:Poor comparison by dcam (Score:2) Monday December 31, @02:19AM
        • Re:Poor comparison by KlomDark (Score:2) Monday December 31, @02:30PM
      • Re:Poor comparison by Zeinfeld (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @07:37PM
      • Re:Poor comparison by AbRASiON (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @09:57PM
      • Re:Poor comparison by mpe (Score:2) Monday December 31, @02:06AM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Poor comparison by piquadratCH (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @06:38PM
    • Re:Poor comparison by Kjella (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @08:30PM
    • Re:Poor comparison by chance2105 (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @09:48PM
    • Re:Poor comparison by fireboy1919 (Score:2) Monday December 31, @08:29AM
    • Re:Poor comparison by Deliveranc3 (Score:2) Monday December 31, @04:02PM
  • by Tim Ward (514198) on Sunday December 30, @06:00PM (#21859982) Homepage
    ... from Win2k to XP, a couple of weeks ago, because the child wanted to run something that didn't work on Win2k. (We have no Win9x or NT boxes left at home now, they've all been upgraded to at least Win2k.)

    In the end, that'll be why people upgrade to Vista - difficulty in obtaining applications that still work on XP.
  • /. effect (Score:5, Interesting)

    by calebt3 (1098475) on Sunday December 30, @06:01PM (#21859994) Homepage
    The chart occasionally shows Firefox having more hits than IE. Maybe those months had more /. articles pointing to PC World's website?
    • Re:/. effect by calebt3 (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @11:44PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • oh look. twitter spin (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ferzerp (83619) on Sunday December 30, @06:04PM (#21860012)
    The same BLOG linked to also states that ie7 is in use more than firefox. However, the tagline for the slashdot story says "firefox is strong". In the time it has come out, more people have adopted that single version of internet explorer than are using all versions of firefox combined.

    Only on slashdot folks.
  • twitter strikes again (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30, @06:04PM (#21860014)
    From the original [slashdot.org] journal entry:

    Vistit the article to see the pretty graphs and to spike PC World's statistics more toward reality. It's clear that computer enthusiasts are not going for M$'s current offerings, show them what people really like.

    twitter also has another journal entry there [slashdot.org], which is hilarious if not for the fact that he spends so much time arguing that Dvorak is an idiot when he says something about Linux twitter doesn't like.

    For someone who has already ruined two Slashdot [slashdot.org] accounts [slashdot.org] with his misguided "evangelism" and is down to trolling AC, he sure has a lot of fun trolling [slashdot.org] the site.

    twitter, please stop "helping" us. Free software needs people who can make intelligent arguments about why it is superior to closed-source gunk, not trolls who spend all their waking hours making up shit about Microsoft with liberal doses of infantile creative spelling.

  • fun with stats (Score:1)

    by norbac (1113477) on Sunday December 30, @06:05PM (#21860022)
    How does the install base in 2001 compare to the marketplace in 2007? This is the key to interpreting these statistics fairly. I'm willing to bet the % of new PCs sold compared to existing install base was much larger back then. Let's be honest, a very small % of people actually upgrade their Windows OS, period. Most Windows sales are new PCs.

    That said, how's the Vista market share compared to other non-MS operating systems?
  • by LaughingCoder (914424) on Sunday December 30, @06:12PM (#21860078)
    According to this web site (http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62034821,00.htm [zdnetasia.com]), Vista, in less than one year, has many times the desktop penetration as does Linux (all flavors still constitute less than 1%) after 15 years. The article also mentions that many (most?) businesses are waiting for SP1 before even considering adoption. Given that SP1 is due in a month or so, I strongly suspect there will be a dramatic change in Vista's numbers in its second year of existence.

    Also along these lines, I know quite a few people who are getting Vista on their new home machines, and have been, for the most part, favorably impressed. This, over time, will also translate into increased adoption in the business world. Like it or not, Vista will become the pervasive desktop in the next 2 years.
  • Reality check (Score:1, Informative)

    by Stan Vassilev (939229) on Sunday December 30, @06:13PM (#21860088)
    IE 6 users are equally likely to move to Firefox as they are to IE7 ...

    Reality check [thecounter.com]:

    1. MSIE 6.x (44%)
    2. MSIE 7.x (35%)
    3. FireFox (14%)
    4. Safari (3%)

    Maybe I'm misunderstanding the word "equally", but we have 35% vs. 14%. Add the IE6 users, the number becomes 79%.

    Should I also remind anyone that IE8 is under progress, including new UI and engine that passes ACID.
    • Re:Reality check by hyades1 (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @06:34PM
    • Virtual reality check (Score:5, Informative)

      by xant (99438) on Sunday December 30, @06:59PM (#21860416) Homepage
      Those numbers are as made-up as the numbers you find anywhere else. My company, which hosts surveys and therefore sees a very broad cross-section of the market, collects web statistics. I just analyzed our logs and got these numbers, which I trust far more than thecounter, whatever the fuck that is:

      IE6 (all operating systems) 35.22%
      FF (all operating systems and versions) 18.35%
      IE7 (all OS) 18.15%
      Other.. the rest

      Should I also remind anyone that IE8 is under progress, including new UI and engine that passes ACID.

      You could, if you wanted to hear someone remind you that Firefox 3 is about to come out (far sooner than IE8) and also passes ACID, as if that were relevant.

      Note, these are not the opinions of my employer, but they are the data of my employer. :-)
      • Re:Virtual reality check (Score:4, Interesting)

        by toddestan (632714) on Sunday December 30, @10:06PM (#21861652)
        IE6 (all operating systems) 35.22%
        FF (all operating systems and versions) 18.35%
        IE7 (all OS) 18.15%
        Other.. the rest


        May I ask what "the rest" is, being that it's about 29% of your numbers? I would guess that Safari, IE5, and Opera are probably at about 5% combined, so that leaves a bit to be accounted for.
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • IE8 doesn't pass ACID so far... by AlgorithMan (Score:1) Sunday December 30, @08:26PM
    • Re:Reality check by hawk (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @10:51PM
    • Re:Reality check by SeaFox (Score:2) Monday December 31, @12:22AM
    • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Thank you (Score:1)

    by russlar (1122455) on Sunday December 30, @06:13PM (#21860094)
    for telling us what we already know.
    • Re:Thank you by stewbacca (Score:2) Sunday December 30, @07:11PM
  • by Fishchip (1203964) on Sunday December 30, @06:18PM (#21860130)
    ...where one of the Vista advocates, apparently quite sincere in his belief, stated that Vista was so secure it'd never need to be patched. EVAR. I bought a laptop with Vista preinstalled recently. After four days I blew three hundred perfectly good dollars that could have gone towards beer on XP Home. A man should not have to be required to make such a sacrifice.