

A brief history of Windows sales figures, 1985-present. - technologizer
http://techland.time.com/2013/05/07/a-brief-history-of-windows-sales-figures-1985-present/

======
tobinfricke
That "data visualization" is terrible. It shows only the durations for which
data is available, but doesn't visualize the data itself.

~~~
astrodust
It's actually more useless than a pie-chart would be in this circumstance,
which is impressively useless.

------
fpp
MS biggest cash cows since years are not their operating systems, but their
office suite(s), server licences, corporate service programs and potentially
also their IP revenues (including other OS like e.g. Android HW manufacturers)
- key to that might be their OS dominance in the corporate PC / desktop world.

To see / visualize that this is changing and to make these numbers more
useful, they need to be combined with e.g. device numbers to get to a level of
market penetration / share (might also need to be broken into corporate /
personal). It's quite a different situation for a company selling your closely
OS-linked solutions to almost every company / PC user when you're holding >75%
market share in the OS segment or when your market share has dropped to 40%+
overall. This effect might intensify over the next years with BYO, more
powerful handheld devices etc.

There are also major gaps in the data - you might also want to check Wikipedia
and MS annual reports for references to more sales data (e.g.
[http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/9/3146777/windows-7-630-milli...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/9/3146777/windows-7-630-million-
licenses-sold-enterprise-adoption))

------
ozh
And some say Windows is dying...

~~~
Samuel_Michon
The PC market (including Macs) has grown a lot in 3 years, but Microsoft sold
as many Windows 8 copies in the first 6 months as it did with Windows 7 (as
the article shows). For Windows 8 to be as popular as Windows 7, it should’ve
sold a lot more copies because the market is much bigger than 3 years a go.
Whereas Windows95 was a product which consumers lined up for, few people buy a
Windows 8 upgrade.

Smartphones and tablets outsell PCs, but the Windows mobile platforms hasn’t
had much success. Even Windows’ PC market share has been declining, while in
the last 5 years Mac install base has tripled.

~~~
ekianjo
> Smartphones and tablets outsell PCs

Yeah but you don't change your PC every single year. At least I guess the
average PC life is somewhere between 2 years and 3 years nowadays on average
(i have no source but that's my impression). Smartphone owners tend to change
theirs every year or so. Smartphones have become a commodity and are
considered as disposable. PCs, not as much. It does not really make sense to
compare both markets. They don't overlap that much.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> Smartphone owners tend to change theirs every year or so. Smartphones have
> become a commodity and are considered as disposable.

This doesn't make sense. A smartphone costs more than the average PC. Unless
these people are buying Macbooks, how do they get away with buying a $500+
phone every year?

~~~
ekianjo
Because in many countries you pay the 500 dollars through your phone contract.
So you do not "see" the cost directly.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
By many other countries, you just mean the USA right? What other countries
practice weird contract subsidies?

The only reason most people upgrade their phone more often than their PC is
because they use it more. Why upgrade a PC that is just sitting in the corner
collecting dust anyways?

~~~
ekianjo
In Japan you don't pay the price of the phone itself, you pay it through your
2 years contract with the provider. And that's a huge market.

I don't think PC collect dusts. You need to type a report for school/work ?
You need to print stuff ? You need to edit your pictures ? You need to develop
software ? Smartphones cannot help you there.

Let's be realistic a second, smartphones are never going to replace ALL PC
usage. People just use different systems for different things, depending on
where they are.

And the "only" reason why people replace their smartphones more often is
because it's cheap through contracts and because its a fashion to show off
your smartphone nowadays for most young people. Don't tell me it's because it
runs faster, because 2-3 years old models still work perfectly for all
intended purposes.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Fair enough. I live in Asia also and haven't seen this practiced much even in
Europe. I haven't lived with these subsidies in a long time, and I always pay
full price for my phones (unless my employer gives me one). No idea about the
Japanese market; it is very unique in too many ways that isn't generalize-able
to the rest of the world.

We've (in unsubsidized China) been upgrading smartphones because (a) they are
incredibly useful, and (b) the hardware is advancing at a rapid clip like PCs
used to...the phone I had 2-3 years ago is a relic compared to the one I have
now.

How many iPads have you seen at Starbucks recently with those keyboard cases
used by those kids...writing reports? Much of the under 10 crowd hasn't even
used a PC yet, they are just used to doing everything on the tablet (now
mostly iPad). There is your PC future.

~~~
ekianjo
Please, don't make me laugh with tablets being the PC future. We all know the
future will be fragmented. There will be space for PC, space for tablets,
space for smartphones and google-like glasses because all of this will be
extremely cheap and there will be advantages to have them all instead of
having just one.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
But one only has time to use so many devices, so many you have a PC in the
office and only a tablet at home, to go along with your phone, glasses, watch,
TV, ... You might have a laptop that you haven't upgraded in 5 years, so no
need to upgrade that.

The PC is not going away, but it's not going to be the ubiquitous consumer
device it once was. But if you have a feeling otherwise, you should buy PC
stocks; they are incredibly cheap for what you think will exist in a vibrant
market.

~~~
ekianjo
> The PC is not going away, but it's not going to be the ubiquitous consumer
> device it once was.

I think we are saying the same thing then.

------
Jgrubb
The most interesting part to me is the Windows 1.0 screenshot at the very top
of the article. They were using the "mobile menu" icon doohicky/convention at
the top left. I wonder what that actually did.

~~~
barrkel
It's probably the same "system menu" that's been in all later versions of
Windows (though increasingly hidden). It's the thing that gives you a menu
with choices to maximize, restore, minimize, move, resize and close the
window. Pops up with Alt+Space. Very useful when you've got a window that has
ended up off the screen somewhere (so you can't move it back with the mouse),
or if you're forced to use the keyboard alone.

