Alas, poor Vista
Friday, May 9th, 2008Just looking at my site statistics (using the really amazing Woopra, which you should check out if you have a web site), and I noticed the OS breakdown for visitors to my site. Here’s the top four systems:
- Windows XP: 38.3%
- Windows Server 2003: 36.9%
- Mac: 11.7%
- Windows Vista: 7.47%
Beyond my mild annoyance that they break down every type of Windows, but lump all Mac OSes under one number, I was a bit amused by the fact that Macs outnumber Vista. Two variants of Windows at least five years old collectively outnumber Microsoft’s new flagship product ten to one.
Of course my little slice of the web isn’t going to perfectly reflect worldwide statistics, but it is one more piece of anecdotal sadness for the Regents of Redmond. I saw an article a while back (probably Joel Spolsky) suggesting that if MS sat back and did nothing but bleed money keeping themselves open, it would take then ten years to go out of business. Despite that impressive buffer, they had better get on the ball and try something new — ’cause whatever they’re doing, it’s not working.
My first thought is: get rid of Ballmer — the man’s a bully. Microsoft has used its near-monopoly like a bludgeon, but as time passes they are once again more and more at the mercy of market forces and individual consumers. Clearly he is having a hard time adjusting to that reality.
Or you could just say that Vista is Microsoft’s Copland… but then, I always thought Windows Me was Microsoft’s Copland. Heh. Showoffs.
