iTechNote

OK. I am back! After having to pass my first Oracle certification. Anyway, back to the topic today. It’s Vista time again.

Windows Vista has less than 1% of the market share according to a market research report released on Thursday. Aliso Viejo-based Net Applications Inc, the company tracking the operating system market share, gives the figures below for each OS in the market for the month of February.

• Windows XP: 84.33%
• Windows 2000: 4.75%
• Mac OS X - PowerPC: 4.29%
• Mac OS X - Intel: 2.09%
• Windows 98: 1.50%
• Windows Vista: 0.93%
• Linux: 0.42%

Windows Vista 0.93% market share is a vast improvement over January’s 0.18%. Despite Microsoft’s intention to spend half a billion dollars marketing Vista, conversions from XP won’t be the norm until 2009. The primary reason to stay in Windows XP is the lack of needs. Most killer applications reside on the Internet these days.

If you look at the PC sales with Vista pre-installed, the market penetration engine for most Windows versions, a report one week after the Jan 30 official launch shows promising figures.Overall unit sales for the week ending February 3, 2007, jumped 173% when compared to the previous week and increased 67% year-over-year.

The sales spike shows there are people waiting for Windows Vista and are willing to spend on a new PC for the new OS. People buying new PCs with Vista also choose higher-end version. Vista Home Premium outsells Vista Home Basic by 2:1 on desktop and 4:1 on notebook.

On retail sales of Vista, the number is down nearly 60% compared to XP. More than 30% of the buyers choose Vista Ultimate, which is listed for $399. Vista’s poor retail sales contrast with Office 2007’s strong first-week retail sales, which more than doubled Office 2003’s first-week sales. Office 2007 is indeed more innovative than Windows Vista.