Windows 8 Continues To Fail

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZDNEt | June 2, 2013

The real take-away from Net Applications' May 2013 release of NetMarketShare monthly operating system statistics is that, as PC sales continue to collapse, Microsoft's Windows 8 could be a factor behind the plunge.

While Microsoft apologists focus on Windows continuing to be the dominant desktop operating system, they keep missing the two elephants in the room: Windows 8 continues to fall behind Microsoft's previous top operating system failure, Vista, and Windows is no longer the dominant end-user operating system when PCs, smartphones and tablets are considered.
True, on the desktop, Windows 7 still ranks as the top operating system with 44.85-percent of all PC users, followed by the still popular Windows XP with 37.74-percent. Vista—yes the never-loved Vista—comes in at third with 4.51 percent. Despite the fact that finding and buying Windows 7 PCs has become increasingly more expensive and difficult, just try finding one in a retail store, Windows 8 share is growing but still comes in last at 4.27 percent.

Worse still, Windows 8's month-over-month growth rate is lagging further and further behind Vista's dreadful 2007 adoption numbers. [...]