Microsoft Timeline

With respect to yearly sales of Windows, Apple and Linux,
research by technology analyst Gartner in 2006 shows current market share
and their predictions of market share through to 2010 to be as follows:

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Windows Vista Business	0.0%	4.2%	15.3%	28%	39.1%
Windows Vista Home	0.0%	4.9%	14%	22%	28.6%
Windows 2000 Professional	14.9%	9.1%	4.8%	2.5%	1.4%
Windows XP Professional	44.5%	47%	39.7%	28.6%	18%
Windows XP Home	29.8%	28.6%	21.6%	14.5%	8.5%
Apple Mac OS	2.5%	2.4%	2.4%	2.4%	2.4%
Linux	1.6%	1.9%	2%	2%	1.9%

Windows XP looks like being around for some time to come - much to Microsoft's disappointment - given how much time - and money they've spent on Vista.

Addendum - In the Australian IT section, Tuesday May 5th 2009, IT research company Gartner says 1.25 billion computers are in action globally. This includes about 600million on Windows Vista, 550million on Windows XP, 36million on Mac OS and 30million on Linux.

Some personal reflections

Note that Apple, who write their own software and build their own machines, have historically catered to a niche (and very loyal) market: chiefly in desktop publishing, graphics, sound, and research i.e. cutting edge development.

Linux, on the other hand, is an open source operating system, based on Unix-like commands, and originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Accordingly, companies can only claim ownership rights to their version of the operating system, as each one carves out its own niche.

For all its difficulties, the biggest strength of Microsoft through the years, I believe, has been its continuity of service: i.e. numerous software packages with accompanying data files written using earlier versions of MS Windows have been regularly supported in later versions of Windows - at times for many years into the future. It is this continuity that provides assurance to the vast majority of business companies and individuals who rely on Microsoft, and is doubtless a lesson Microsoft learned from the original computer companies: IBM, NCR, etc.

This continuity of service, incidentally, many times does not apply to old hardware. This was the source of a major difficulty, of course, between Microsoft and IBM. For this reason, it has been recommended that users only upgrade their version of MS Windows when purchasing a new computer — or when the computer they own is less than 12 months old.