20 people walk into a room… odds are one uses Linux

It’s the end of 2010.  We’re officially nearing the end of the “Aughties.”  (Looking forward to the “Teenies!”)  It’s been the most dynamic period in consumer computer platforms to date.  We saw the strongest Windows offering to date (XP), followed by the worst operating system ever (Vista), a major reprise (Windows 7),  then Apple got real loud, and, oh yeah, Linux was there, too.

It seems that if you were to survey a group of computer users, you wouldn’t get a situation like you’d expect after a decade of the “I’m a Mac” ads.

More likely, outside the creative field you’d hard-pressed to find a mac-user.  Out of a group with 20 people their computers would likely be closer to the group below.

After three Windows releases, six Apple OSX releases, it seems the first is still the most popular.  The 2001 Windows XP still holds nearly half of computer users’ loyalty while Apple manages to hold on to a paltry 10% of the marketplace. 

Windows XP	Windows XP	Windows XP	Windows XP	Windows XP
Windows XP	Windows XP	Windows XP	Windows XP	Windows XP
Windows 7	Windows 7	Windows 7	Windows 7	Windows 7
Windows Vista	Windows Vista	Mac OSX	Mac OSX	Linux

*Based on data from W3Schools.com

Note: There’s generally a bit of variance in every set of numbers, that’s part of the reason for the rounding in the above visualization.  w3schools has been the definitive source, and most-often referenced site for browser statistics. Below is the disclaimer on their site:

Global averages may not always be relevant to your web site. Different sites attract different audiences. Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, while other sites attract hobbyists using old low spec computers.
Also be aware that many statistics may have an incomplete or faulty browser detection. It is quite common by many web-stats report programs, not to detect the newest browsers.
(The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools’ log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures).