When Internet market analytics firm NetMarketshare released its desktop operating system report for September, it yielded up a surprising statistic: Windows 7 experienced slightly better growth for the month than Windows 8 did.
It’s further evidence of how confused and confusing the desktop market is — not just in terms of its imploding growth, thanks to tablets and phones devouring the underbelly of its market share, but also because of how tough it can be to gather unbiased third-party stats about OS usage.
NetMarketshare’s latest tally showed Windows 8 at 8.02 percent of desktop market share and Windows 7 at 46.43 percent. Both OSes increased their usage in September, but Windows 8’s growth slowed after a major jump in August.
Since its release at the end of October 2012, Windows 8 has gained on average 0.69 percent market share each month, with the biggest leap coming in August when it gained 2.01 percent. In September, Windows 8’s growth slowed to a mere 0.61 percent, while Windows 7 market share — which had hovered at around 44 percent since Januaryand leapt to 45.63 percent in August — grew 0.8 percent in September.
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