Weekly Wrap-up. Windows 7's usage jumps by 40%, but overall Microsoft's share continue to drop

According to Web measurement company Net Applications the share of new Microsoft OS has jumped by 40% in the week following its release.


While overall Windows OS's share continue to decline, dropping 0.23 of a percentage point in October, Windows 7 share jumped by more than 39% and averaged 2.66% for week after its release. The highest rate Windows 7 reached on Saturday, October 31 averaging 3.48% that represented even larger 82% increase. However, for the whole month the system ended up with a market share of 2.15%, which is 41% more than 1.52% of September figures. According to Net Applications one in every 44 PCs run Windows 7 last month.

But, such a rapid increase might be due to excess usage of spurious copies in Russia and Eastern Europe countries, Net Applications said. Of the top 25 countries by usage, 17 are in Eastern Europe. Slovenia in the lead with 7.8% of all computers ran Windows 7 last month, number 3 is Lithuania with 6.5% following by Romania with 6% of all computers used Windows 7.

According to the Business Software Alliance, an industry-backed anti-piracy organization the piracy rate in Central and Eastern Europe was the highest in global perspective in 2008. The percentage of all properly licensed software used in Slovenia averaged 47% last year, which is more than double the rate in the U.S. Lithuania, Romania, Latvia and Russia with 54%, 66%, 56% and 68% respectively.

Although, Microsoft Corp places great hopes on Windows 7, which already gained some reputation, the overall Windows share continue to drop. Microsoft's most popular OS ever lost 0.64% on average during past year, failing to 70.6% while its another product a widely-criticized Vista lost market share in September for the first time in almost two years. The main recipient of former Microsoft users is Apple. Its Mac OS X operating system share climbed by 0.15% at the end of October averaging 5.27% setting a new record for Apple.