Techspot has discovered this week that Microsoft will release its upcoming Windows 8 operating system in late 2012, likely around the anniversary of 7’s launch in October.
The proof comes via a blog post in which Microsoft says (translated roughly): “Furthermore, Microsoft is on course with the next version of Windows. But it will take about two years before “Windows 8″ hits the market.”
Microsoft has not commented on the post.
The timing makes sense, though, as Microsoft has openly said they hoped to return to a three-year product cycle after the delayed cycle that caused Vista to be released seven years after Windows XP.
Microsoft’s latest iteration, Windows 7, has sold 240 million licenses in just one year of release.
Result for: windows xp
Microsoft has said today that it has already sold 240 million Windows 7 licenses, making it the fastest-selling operating system in the company’s history.
Windows 7 went on sale last October.
The software giant noted that by the end of September, Windows 7 was running on 93 percent of new PCs, with the OS jumping to 17.1 percent global OS market share, surpassing Vista during the summer.
Windows XP still accounts for a majority 60 percent of the global market.
IW notes that Microsoft has seen their bottom line grow significantly thanks to the strong success of the operating system, with the company seeing a 48 percent increase in net income year-on-year for the fiscal Q4 ended June 30th.
Result for: windows xp
According to data released by research firm Net Applications, users of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems still predominately use Windows XP. The data showed that XP had a market share of about 60.03 percent, down from 60.89 percent the previous month. Windows 7 gained 1.25 points to 17.10 percent while Windows Vista dropped from 14.00 percent to 13.00 percent.
Of all machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating system software, approximately 66 percent were still running Windows XP, down from 76 percent before Windows 7 launched. During September, Windows Vista had a share of 14.66 percent among will Windows users, down quite a bit from its peak at 20.35 percent. Windows 7 has a 19 percent share among all Windows users.
The results are not very surprising, but it does show that the overall decline in Windows market share (albeit slight) is not being made up by the growth of Windows 7. It also shows that computer users are probably reluctant to invest in a new computer to support Windows 7 if their XP machine works just fine, or even if they could upgrade, are unwilling to risk running into compatibility and other issues.
Net Applications’ data showed that MacOS X stayed stable at around 5.03 percent market share in September, and so did Linux installations at 0.85 percent. The only other operating system showing gains is Apple’s iOS, at 1.18 percent.
As usual, different firms have different figures. StatCounter reports Windows XP market share at 53.99 percent, Windows Vista’s market share at 16.59 percent and Windows 7’s market share at 22.04 percent. The overall trend of StatCounter’s figures generally reflects that of Net Applications’ data.
