For those wondering the answer: What will we use if Microsoft is not the majority market share?
The answer is iOS and Linux. Apple and Google Android tablets will be the back to school computer of choice as of this summer creating a devastating trend for Microsoft.

As of October 31, according to w3counter:

• Microsoft Windows holds 79.69% market share, a 1.53% decrease from last month.
• Windows XP is the most predominate at 44.17%.
• GNU/Linux has a 1.49% market share.
• Iphone has 1.31% market share.
• Android has 0.25%.
• Internet Explorer continues to plummet. We are now using IE 41.6% which is down by 1.7% from last month.
• Don’t believe the FUD. There is no significant market share of IE9.

Microsoft’s market share is surely on the decline but will it have a minority market share come June 30, 2010?

Measuring market share is much more difficult that we had anticipated when we embarked on this project in June 2009. Web traffic is certainly an indicator of trends but it is highly skewed to the American and English speaking world who visits commercial websites. W3counter is the best in class since they have better global and website type diversity.

It is due to the web analytic market share counters that the myth of “Linux is 1% of the market share” persists. We present three reasons below.

1. Totally off-the grid systems do not get counted.

• 1,494,500 deployed by One Laptop Per Child.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux desktops, SuSE Enterprise Linux Desktop, or Ubuntu desktops on corporate or government networks behind a firewall.
• Appliance deployments like cash registers.

2. Nor do research institutions and Universities get properly counted.

For example, Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science uses Fedora on the desktop but it does not show up in Fedora’s update statistics. Why? The version of Fedora is so heavily customized to the environment that it needs its own update mechanism. None the less, with 26,307,719 unique ip addresses getting Fedora updates, Fedora alone must have have greater than 1% desktop market share.

3. I agree with Caitlyn Martin, with all of the netbook sales, something is not adding up.

A commenter asked for a 2009 and a 2010 market share report for netbooks. Here is one from November 2009 reporting 1/3 Linux market share. Regretfully, I have nothing for 2010 since the scoop is that netbooks are losing market share overall to iPad tablets. Never fear Linux Fans, The Android Samsung Galaxy Tab 7″ tablet has only been out for a month and has been selling nicely. By the way, Microsoft still lacks a significant market share in tablets.

We won’t stand for the lies behind the 1% myth any more.

We as non-Microsoft users need to stand up and say what we are using. If you use GNU/Linux, I urge you to participate in the Dudalibre “We > 1%” campaign. It takes one minute to say which distro you use.

Poke for my Fedora Friends: Does Fedora really only have 2.84% of the Linux desktop market share? Does Red Hat Enterprise Linux really have only 0.33% of the Linux desktop market share? Really?!? Take pride and say what you use.

When the truth comes out, Microsoft will not have a majority market share come June 30, 2011.

This is not news to the regular readers of whatwillweuse.com where we made this declaration in January 2010. Nor is this a surprise to the market share watchers at w3counter.com who now report 43.3% Internet Explorer market share. Its also worth noting that W3Schools reports a dismal 31.1% Microsoft browser market share. Large audience sites such as wikipedia.org report less than 50% IE users. This September, major market share counter statcounter.com reports 49.87% market share for Internet Explorer. The evidence is overwhelming that Microsoft has lost the browser war.

Those who follow exclusively Net Applications’ market share reports see the September 2010 market share at 59.65% Internet Explorer. This is discouraging news for Microsoft since the trend is on track IE decrease which will yield less than 50% for their June 2011 report.

What do you think – Comment please

Does more than half of the Internet-using world use Microsoft Internet Explorer?

Will Internet Explorer 9 regain, maintain, or lose Microsoft’s browser fan base?

To help answer this question this Ubucon has an all star cast.

Jorge O. Castro, External Project Developer Relations for Canonical, will be speaking about Low-Hanging Fruit of the juicy software variety. Jorge works with getting really hard bits to integrate with Ubuntu, recently and namely Google Voice with video support. He will show us how we can all help by packaging and bug fixing. Yummy.

Next will be the outstanding Amber Graner of Ubuntu User magazine. She will discuss how it is possible to contribute to Free software, even if you are not a developer. Amber knows because she has done it all without compiling a single code or hacking a single kernel. You go girl.

Then we will have some words from the Ubuntu Ohio LoCo Team who are experts in gorilla marketing of Free software. They mobilize volunteers to support recycling efforts like Free Geek Columbus and distribute Ubuntu to the libraries. These party-animals also make sure every single release is properly celebrated. If your dance card on October 10, 2010 does not include Maverick Meerkat then the Ohio LoCo team will tell you how to plan a release party in your neighborhood. Ubuntinis anyone?

Master-of-the-Universe and Kubuntu programmer Mackenzie Morgan will discuss the Ubuntu software development process. She will explain how she makes great Free software available . Microsoft sells software like it is 1984 and Mackenzie packages Free software like its 2014. Take a time machine with Mackenzie and she will show us how its done. Mackenzie is the future.

Last, but not least is David Mandala, lead of the ARM team at Canonical, who will be taking your questions concerning ARM on Ubuntu. When not giving talks at LinuxFests, David travels the globe working with ARM board builders and councils them on making their hardware compatible with Linux ever since Ubuntu 9.04. Microsoft didn’t even get into the ARM operating system business until last month – and that took some arm-twisting. Catch David on Saturday at 10 A.M. where he will talk more about the future of Ubuntu ARM support in the “FOSS in Other Worlds” track. With David’s help, Ubuntu will be first and best on a full Free software stack on ARM-based tablets as soon as this Christmas. Game over for the Windows desktop.

At the Ohio LinuxFest, at Ubucon, we will seal the fate: Microsoft will lose majority market share come June 30, 2011.

Freedom through Ubuntu is possible and real…

I started this blog to keep personal notes of what exactly is Microsoft’s market share. Never did I ever expect a crowd of 28,460 unique visitors to care about what will we use when Microsoft has a minority market share. Thank you all for making me the tribal user of What Will We Use where we watch Microsoft’s market share until FY 2011 close.

First I defined where Microsoft claimed to have a majority market share.Then Nick and I agreed to watch w3counter’s market share reports.

There were only 3 which held any merit as of June 2009: Desktops, Browsers, and Office Suites.

How are we doing one year into it?

1. Desktop Operating Systems

In the past twelve months Windows market share went from 88.09% to 83.11%. The Windows XP product, which continues to hold the largest market share went from 69.74% to 49.95% of the total desktop operating system market share. The trend is showing as people divest from older Microsoft technologies, they do not “upgrade” to Windows Vista or Windows 7.

The next 12 months will bring a new breed of tablets and notebooks which will run  Ubuntu on ARM. These will sell like hot cakes so that people can watch Google’s youtube and play games of Facebook. The desktop is over, even in the corporate sector.

Here’s the dirty secret behind this mind-boggling growth — and the two words that will put an end to the party

IT consulting firm IDC reports that every dollar a company spends on a Microsoft product results in an additional $8 of IT expenses.

And one IT expert admits, “Trillions of dollars that companies have invested into information technology have gone to waste.”

Yet, companies have had no choice but to run these obscenely expensive and highly inefficient networks.

But that’s all about to change…

And that’s precisely why the two words “cloud computing” scare the hell out of Bill Gates.

…

And Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, has even written an entire book on the subject, entitled The Big Switch. In it, he asserts: “The PC age is giving way to a new era: the utility age.”

He goes on to make this prediction: “Rendered obsolete, the traditional PC is replaced by a simple terminal — a ‘thin client’ that’s little more than a monitor hooked up to the Internet.”

While that may sound far-fetched, in the corporate market, sales of these “thin clients” have been growing at over 20 percent per year — far outpacing the sales of PCs.

According to market-research firm IDC, the U.S. is now home to more than 7,000 data centers just like the one constructed on the banks of the Columbia River in 2005.

And the number of servers operating within these massive data centers is expected to grow to nearly 16 million by 2010 — that’s three times as many as a decade ago.

quote courtesy of Motely Fool Newsletter called

The Two Words Bill Gates Doesn’t Want You to Hear…

Plus, the 2 companies poised to rule the post-Microsoft world

“

2. Web Browsers

In the past twelve months Internet Explorer went from 57.6% to 45.7%. As far as Nick and I are concerned, this one is won in my favor. It is still fun to watch low low can Microsoft go? Google’s decision to turn off youtube.com support for older browsers was a fatal blow for IE6. All market share browser counters show Microsoft hemorrhaging market share. In June 30, 2011. IE9 will not save Microsoft since they have decided to not support it on Windows XP. Since Microsoft’s key operating system user demographic is XP, turning their back on their legacy customers will be the last straw. Seriously, how many people are going to buy a new PC just to run a proprietary web browser when Firefox and Chrome are free?

3. Office Suites

It is very possible I have this one won too. Last month I proposed to Nick that we use Oracle’s OpenOffice.Org download figures to count as missed profit opportunity. As of the time of this post OpenOffice.Org 3.x has 159,894,085 downloads which represents $55,962,929,750 loss. That’s Almost 56 MILLION dollars that Microsoft coulda-shoulda-woulda had. Will Microsoft make that level of profits in their business software division come FY2011 market share reports?

Meanwhile, Google Apps continues to pick up market share with their Microsoft Exchange migration tool…

Over 500,000 companies — including GE [NYSE: GE] and Procter & Gamble [NYSE: PG] — have already signed up for Google Apps.

This grab bag of business applications can be purchased and run over the Web for just $50 per year and is just one of many Google products now giving Microsoft a run for its money.

Considering that Google Apps costs just one-tenth of what a traditional business software suite does, it’s no surprise that more than 2,000 businesses are signing up per day.

quote courtesy of Motely Fool Newsletter called

The Two Words Bill Gates Doesn’t Want You to Hear…

Plus, the 2 companies poised to rule the post-Microsoft world

Microsoft’s Sharepoint product which is heavily tied to Microsoft Office 2007 is not for long either. Customers seeking to use free software to manage their intra-net content can do so with Alfresco. They’ll even help you migrate.

I am as confident as ever in my assertion.

Yes indeed Bug One will be RESOLVED.

Nick will pay me $20.

GandhiCon4 is afoot.

We will win the war. We are at war with Microsoft. We have always been at war with Microsoft. Come June 30, 2011 Microsoft will lose majority market share.

Nonetheless, Microsoft continues to creatively self-destruct. While Microsoft fails to sell Windows 7 to XP users, Apple’s market share picks up. How can Steve Ballmer justify his raise? I’m sorry but patent extortion of I-O Data’s Linux devices and Amazon’s Kindle are not work product. Meanwhile, Google’s Linux-based products grow market share exponentially. Google has not been sued because Google would not be the type to pay out of court. Is Microsoft turning into a litigation company? How did that strategy work out for the bankrupt SCO? As I already pointed out, being in court all of the time distracts Microsoft from making real technology that people actually want to use. If Microsoft could sell software on the open market profitably, why are they on the patent lawsuit FUD warpath?

Since Microsoft lost their own patent battle to the tune of $290 million to I4i over Word 2007, maybe they find it safer to sue other companies than make browsers, office suites, and operating systems. Go ahead Microsoft and mock Firefox’s success, you only look like jealous crybabies babies.

The writing is on the wall, Microsoft has lost in the long term. Gartner’s 2008 prediction of open source having majority market share in 2012 is really growing roots. Come June 30, 2011, Microsoft’s fate will be clear, until then, I will bring your my market share reports and other commentary.

This month I decided to compare my percentages to W3Counter, a no-cost analytic service that shares their global market share figures on a monthly basis.

We are worlds apart on the browser market share, but as far as the operating systems go, there are areas where we agree save Windows XP and Linux…

And now for the browsers…

What do you think world? What will March of 2010 hold in store for us on our journey to understand what will we use come June 30, 2011?

Today, I, a life-long Pennsylvania resident I declare early victory with 1/3 of the bet behind this blog: Microsoft will no longer have majority market share on June 30, 2011.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Microsoft no longer has a majority browser market share.

W3Counter watched the traffic of the 32,245 customer websites for the 31 days of January 2010 and reported 49.7% Internet Explorer use. I knew this day was afoot and I predicted IE’s demise at the end February 2010 two months ago. Thanks to all of you who signed up for a free w3counter account, we all get the best global market share reports.

Dan Grossman of W3Counter, also of Pennsylvania, put together these beautiful graphs that show the trends specific to Microsoft Internet Explorer’s demise. Observe the users of the legacy product, Internet Explorer 6 declining over time and look how other Microsoft products fail to directly answer the version 6 loss.

As far as browsers go, the “what will we use” question has been answered: Open source browsers such as Firefox and Chrome seem to be taking Microsoft’s market share. GandhiCon 4 here we come.

Sure, I am a crazy Linux using, free software loving, groundhog watching, winter loathing, anti-Microsoft FUD spreading, Pennsylvanian who correctly predicted browser market share.

Before I get started, I need to apologize that the commenter browser/OS detection plug-in, Browser Sniff, has been reporting falsely for Chrome-based browsers and Windows 7. I use with w3counter for my monthly reports which has nothing to do with Browser Sniff. Rest assured, the reports from w3counter are right on. Just to be sure, I also subscribe to Google Analytics and the numbers line up, month after month.

My preference for web analytic service and market share reports is w3counter. If you have a website and you would like to have some no-cost information on your visitors, sign up for w3counter. Nor do you you need a fancy website, programming skills, or your own domain name. If you can paste one line of html/javascript into your index.html, you too can use w3counter. Everybody can do this. This is another unpaid endorsement from a very happy w3counter customer.

Now onto the browser report of the whatwillweuse.com visitors for the month of December 2009

1     Firefox 3.5      68%
2     Firefox 3.0     13%
3     Internet Explorer 8.0 4%
4     Mozilla 1.9 3%
5     Safari 4.0 2%
6     Chrome 4.0 2%
7     Chrome 3.0 1%
8     Internet Explorer 7.0 1%
9     Identification Blocked 1%
Less than 1% goes to Internet Explorer 6.0

And the Operating System Report of visitors of whatwillweuse.com

1      Windows XP 28%
2     Windows Vista 18%
3     Windows 7 18%

The top 3 make 64%. Where are you team Linux and Apple?

4     Linux 17%
5     Mac OS X 14%
6     Unknown 3%
Less than 1% goes to Windows 2003, iPhone OSX, Windows 2000, iPhone OSX, Windows 2000 and Android. One sole FreeBSD user. Zero ChromeOS visitors yet.

Note: If you read whatwillweuse.com through RSS or a planet feed, your visit is not recorded. Only those who browse whatwillweuse.com are recorded. Therefore, in order to be counted, please type http://whatwillweuse.com at your browser at least once a month. Link-love is always appreciated. Thanks!

Click on the W3Counter logo to see the Browser/Operating system global report for December 2009. Note that the IE global market share is 50.3% according to w3counter. Soon enough, Microsoft will no longer have claim to majority browser market share.

That is over 265% growth from October. Since mid July, we will have close to 15,000 unique visitors and growing. In full disclosure, much of the November traffic happened due to someone submitting us to stumbleupon.com. Thank you whomever you are.

No matter how you found us, welcome. This blog is tracking the downfall of Microsoft. It started when Nick bet Beth Lynn $20 that Microsoft would still have majority market share in June 2011. Imagine turning on your computer and not seeing Windows, Internet Explorer or Microsoft Office. More than half of the computing population will do just that if Beth Lynn wins the bet. Civil discussion, even if you are on the Microsoft payroll, is encouraged here.

We use w3counter, an analytics service, to track what our readers are using. By doing so, whatwillweuse.com contributes to a 30,000+ website community which results in the the w3counter global market share report. Anybody can sign up. It is free as long as you have only one website which gets less than 5000 daily visitors. Even if you are already using a paid service, why not give w3counter a try? It is simple to setup too.

W3counter will give you all sorts of information on your visitors such as somebody found this site by typing “is MS Money 95 compatible ble with windows 7″ into a search engine. Just in case that was a serious question, I will answer: Please give gnucash a try and report back. Gnucash is free accounting software that runs on
Linux, MacOSX, and Windows. Thanks!

First the whatwillweuse.com November 2009 browser report

Firefox         10,514    74%
Safari             1,132    8%
Mozilla         844     6%
Internet Explorer     555     4%
Identification Blocked     408     3%
Chrome             364 3%
Opera, Sea Monkey, iPhone, Rippers, Konqueror all had less than 1%

Now the whatwillweuse.com November 2009 operating system report
1      Linux      4,026     28%
2     Windows XP     3,456    24%
3     Mac OS X     2,459    17%
4     Windows Vista     2,008    14%
5     Windows 7     1,505    11%
6     Unknown     591    4%
Windows 2003, iPhone OSX, Windows 2000, Android, SunOS, and Palm all
had less than 1%

This blog is only 4 months old but since we have so many new readers, it is worth restating some high points. I, Beth Lynn Eicher, bet $20 that Microsoft’s market share would be less than 50% on June 30, 2011. I am not insulted if you think I am crazy for making this claim. Every plan begins with a “YES we can!” vision. You do not need to agree with me to follow this blog.  Please comment if you disagree, especially if you are on the Microsoft payroll. All that is required is some genuine interest in intelligent discussion on Microsoft’s market share over the next 20 months. So far, the readers have been primarily from the Open Source community but this blog is also for Microsoft users so that they can discuss their satisfaction levels of Microsoft products.

The work of providing actual market share trend figures is difficult to do, especially since whatwillweuse.com is an leisure effort. I lack a marketing budget in which to buy professional projections which cost thousands of dollars. Instead, I use w3counter, a free web statistics service for websites and blogs, and follow their global statistics. In my opinion, w3counter gives the most accurate values because it allows regular people like me to allow the people in my social network to be counted. Competing products are only available to those with products to sell which I suspect is heavily weighted by what professional buyers are using in wealthy English speaking countries. Since quite a few Search Engine Optimization blogs have linked my post on how and why w3counter is useful to you, me, and everybody, I am convinced that community-oriented web statistics with w3counter yield excellent results. If you are a blogger of any sort and want to get some free statistics on who your readers are, I highly recommend w3counter, regardless of what operating system and web browser you use.

Alright, on with the statistics arleady. Here is the traffic we observed on whatwillweuse.com out of 3,170 unique visitors….

First Web Browsers:

1. Firefox      3,398      58%
2. Safari     815     14%
3. Mozilla     551     9%
4. Identification Blocked     335     6%
5. Internet Explorer     275     5%
6. Chrome     207     4%
7. Opera     70     1%

Operating Systems:

1.  Linux      2,524      43%
2.  Mac OS X     1,174     20%
3.  Windows XP     1,101     19%
4.  Unknown     415     7%
5.  Windows Vista     371     6%
6.  Windows 7     168     3%
7.  iPhone OSX     38     <1%

Click on the W3Counter logo to see the Browser/Operating system global report for October 2009

Notes on the global browser statistics:

Microsoft has less than 52% market share if you include IE6 which Microsoft no longer supported by Microsoft. If you ignore IE6 because it is a retired product as far as Microsoft is concerned,  Microsoft has only 38.39% of the browser market share.

Notes on the global operating systems:

These statistics do not break out full licensed copies of Windows 7 from the Release Candidate. Keep in mind that both MacOSX and Linux increased their market share during the month of the Windows 7 launch.

Notes on global diversity:

64.2% of the statistics are from non-English speaking countries.

Microsoft will have less than 50% market share on June 30, 2011.