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Windows Market Share Rises But PC Sales Flatten

Time: 11:49 EST/16:49 GMT | News Source: WinInformant | Posted By: Byron Hinson

Two interesting market surveys indicate that Windows has actually gained market share in the most recent quarter, even though PC sales have almost flattened and will likely grow at an abbreviated rate through 2003. According to market researcher OneStat.com, Windows now controls 97.46 percent of the global desktop operating system market, compared to just 1.43 percent for Apple Macintosh and 0.26 percent for Linux. OneStat.com says its figures are derived from real-time global Web site analysis, and are an average of the past two months.

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#1 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 9/10/2002 12:34:23 PM

Go Microsoft!

#2 By 2960 (156.80.64.132) at 9/10/2002 12:39:10 PM

If your gonna be a Monopoly, might as well do it right :)

TL

#3 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 9/10/2002 1:24:10 PM

You sure do have a lot to say, beeyp.

#4 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 1:59:47 PM

Ahh, PT, the Master of FUD: "Two interesting market surveys indicate that Windows has actually gained market share in the most recent quarter..." Well, actually the second survey doesn't indicate anything about marketshare, it just looks at the market as a whole... So I guess PT knew it would be pathetic to say, "One unscientific market surveys indicate that Windows has actually gained market share." So he pretends that 2 surveys say the same thing. And even my grandmother's helper monkey knows that more than 60% of web surfing occurs at work and does nothing to statistically measure the number of computers in the market.

...Oh, I see, it's even better: the other nonsensical "web browser" survey indicates no improvement so he fails to mention it or any numbers from the poll. Slick, Paul.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Tuesday, September 10, 2002 at 14:15.

#5 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 9/10/2002 2:09:37 PM

Oh, those stalwart OS2 and Amiga users making up the remaining 0.85 percent.... :)

I wonder how the remaining 0.85 percent breaks down. But not that much.

#6 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 9/10/2002 2:31:56 PM

This is about as unbiased as you are going to get:

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

Windows 98 - 43%
Windows 2000 - 20%
Windows XP - 17%
Windows NT - 7%
Windows 95 - 4%
Mac - 4%
Linux - 1%
Other - 4%

Not sure where WinMe fits into this. :)

#7 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 2:46:09 PM

soda, those are about the numbers that I'd agree with, but again, google searching tends to be higher at work--hence (I would conjecture), a negligible appearance (less than 1% but factored into Other) by WinMe.

#8 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 9/10/2002 3:35:35 PM

Sodajerk--I'm not sure of your point... are you saying that work browsing should be weighted lower than home browsing?

#9 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 9/10/2002 3:56:44 PM

That's one side of the issue. Call me crazy, but wouldn't a 22 Billion dollar stock buy back appear on the income statement? It is my understanding that a stock buy back and excersizing an option are not the same. Why then does the author put them in the same category?

Also, I'd argue that rediculously more than options, it was stupid investors that caused "the bubble to burst". How many people continued to buy Amazon.com stock even though it was never profitable prior to the burst? Or RedHat? Or any Linux vendor? How many bought stock at prices which were up to 100x the earnings of the company? Factoring in stock options would make that worse, but investors were foolish to begin with, so expensing stock options, I think, would have made little difference.

#10 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 4:46:02 PM

bluvg, it's simple--with dynamic addressing, there is no clear indicator whether or not you are counting different PCs or the same one--relatively accurate but when the PC marketplace is much different from a peak web usage marketplace, it's clear that this can get blown out of the water... Nevermind other areas where this gets whacked--for example, I've got a network of 3 computers at home, but I only surf from one. Or the Opera example mentioned above which would disguise Linux, MacOS, or any other system as IE on the PC.

So if I'm on the web at work for eight hours on 20 different IPs, but only for two hours at home on a static IP on only one of my 3 machines--this "survey" would count 20 PCs and 1 Mac from my usage, when in fact I own 3 Macs and 0 PCs.

I think the Google/WinME numbers that soda posted make it clear. I think MS had their own numbers of about 4-6% WinME--since WinME isn't generating the order of magnitudes higher number of hits from work (since there is little reason for WinME in a work environment, and few installations as such) it gets diluted, and looks less substantial. But web hits (whether or not they can accurately determine the system and browser, which in the case of Opera and spoofing they can't) by no means can count the number of installations of systems in the overall market.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Tuesday, September 10, 2002 at 17:12.

#11 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 9/10/2002 4:52:13 PM

You admit to owning three Macs. Lol.

#12 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 4:54:17 PM

Bob, he's not putting buybacks in the same boat as options. He's using the buybacks (their cost, their value) to show that to Intel it is an expense to issue options. Intel is concerned about the dilution and low price of its stock, and a large portion of its revenue is a result of these stock buybacks--thus, the stock options are an expense to the company and do have value.

#13 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 5:01:01 PM

Bob, you admit to not understanding this simple financial story and yet you stick your nose in it and blame it on the writer. Ha, ha, ha.

#14 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 9/10/2002 5:19:04 PM

Sodajerk, so you're saying that ISPs don't assign dynamic addressing to home accounts? Broadband static IPs still make up a small portion of the market. As for coming from different IPs from a work machine, by and large most users are not using 20 different IPs in a day.

I understand what you're saying and how it would affect you as part of the survey's results, but you really don't expect us to believe that this is commonplace and that these types of situations are going to skew the results significantly, do you? And, besides that, what about the guy/girl that has a static IP for his/her 3 Windows boxes at home (which is not at all uncommon!)?

#15 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 9/10/2002 5:21:42 PM

I said "it is my understanding...". If I am incorrect feel free to teach me, so I won't be so ignorant in the future.

#16 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 5:29:21 PM

bluvg, no I am not saying that IPs aren't dynamically addressed for home users, I'm saying work usage accounts for a substantially larger portion of web usage and dynamic addressing is far, far, far more prominent than for home accounts. And no I am not saying that my situation throws this off substantially because it applies to many (Clearly not, my own analogy would throw off a poll by what? Hundreds of percentage points?). But I am saying that this would most certainly throw off the statistically accuracy (beyond the statistical inaccuracy of all polls/surveys) by as much as 3 -5 % ... which after all is the sort of shift that we are trying to account for. Don't know why you'd think I was proposing a monster shift from this when the numbers that I agree with are within a percentage point or two.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Tuesday, September 10, 2002 at 17:51.

#17 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 5:49:07 PM

It was a joke, Bob -- simply meant to reflect the idiocy of your own comment --that implied I used something inferior and/or that I had something to hide. At the same time, you're babbling on about something completely irelevent in an ignorant manner.

If you'd like to know, the thesis of the article is basically:

Yes, accounting for expenses is complex, but defending your position can further muddy the argument, even weaken your position, particularly in the case of Intel.

Intel's argument is that their options aren't expenses because they aren't dilutive to the total outstanding shares. (Bad, bad argument.)

This is true, but also the best argument that it is an expense. In order to maintain the same number of shares on the market, Intel has to buy back billions of dollars of shares. This is conceptually a good thing--it's anti-dilutive, supportive, and preserves revenues as equity in your own company, but it 100% shows the COST of maintaining the same number of outstanding shares (yes, it does show up on income statements; exactly why he is able to provide an exact value of the buybacks.) Stock buy backs register as revenue--basically, the same as if it stayed as cash reserves, but generally, it is used to combat the dilution of issuing shares. Those shares don't get redistributed, increasing the core value to current shareholders. If Intel is redistributing these shares back to employees, it's not functioning as revenue--it's an expense. If the reason for buying back shares is to stall the dilution caused by options, not the granting of new stock (which does get accounted), it's hiding the very REAL EXPENSE of options as REVENUE.

So, Intel is exposing their own gimmick by providing the defense that options are not dilutive to the stock's value.

Get it yet?

#18 By 9640 (195.92.168.172) at 9/10/2002 5:55:18 PM

Does anyone know how OneStat.com get their market research data? Do they use a web crawler? My site has been visited a few times by www.onestat.com.

http://www.lee.ic24.net/

#19 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 9/10/2002 6:02:06 PM

I disagree that dynamic addressing is different for work than for home--most ISPs assign their dial-up customers dynamic IPs, and this accounts for the great majority of home users. And, FWIW, there are those businesses that assign static IPs to their individual computers.

I guess I'm also disagreeing with your proposed reasons for slight statistical differences (although this might be a silly thing to argue about... 1-2 percentage points). I think there are better reasons to account for those differences. The instance you point out of having three Macs sitting behind one IP actually brings up the point that there are many, many Windows boxes sitting behind one IP as well, so I don't think that contributes to your argument. There is also a lot of business use that is going to show up entirely behind one proxy IP, and sometimes these proxies are pro-actively gathering content for an internal cache (BorderManager, ISA Server, etc.) so that the internal PCs can hit that cache rather than the sites.

I'd like to know more about how the data is tallied... it seems like IP wouldn't provide much useful information; can someone explain how machine uniqueness is determined in these results?

That said, I'm also not inclined to believe PT's result of 1.43 percent for Mac users... that does seem pretty low.

#20 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 6:09:38 PM

I could further disagree with you, bluvg, but at this point I think we are in agreement. The mode for these 2 surveys to gather their data are probably the most inappropriate means of arriving at an accurate value.

Note that my original point was: that PT was pulling out his usual FUD. You can't tell me that he isn't aware that this method of surveying is completely spurious. That he didn't notice that the second survey doesn't corroborate the first. That he accidentally forgot to provide the name and numbers presented in this second survey (since they disagree with him and the 1st survey). That his lead sentence (citing 2 surveys propounding this view) is a complete and utter LIE. etc... Yet, every time something like this comes up: he says he's being unbiased, fair, and trying to do his research. Bullsh1t.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Tuesday, September 10, 2002 at 18:12.

#21 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 9/10/2002 6:30:53 PM

Once again sodajerk is pulling his usual FUD.

#22 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 9/10/2002 6:55:44 PM

Where's the FUD, Bob, or are you just miffed that you don't know your ass from your elbow when it comes to finance?

#23 By 1190 (63.28.229.44) at 9/10/2002 10:47:54 PM

Sodablue said: "Not sure where WinMe fits into this. :) "

It doesn't. The majority of WinME users have committed suicide by now.

#24 By 4240821 (45.149.82.86) at 10/25/2023 9:38:39 PM

#25 By 4240821 (213.139.195.162) at 10/29/2023 9:05:14 PM

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