Sometimes, I just can’t understand MS.

Some have mentioned about MS trying to get folks off of XP, and this is one way they are trying.  Microsoft gets nothing for the browser, but gets big bucks from the OS (Although the base price for OSX and Windows is the same, OSX has a family license, Windows does not).

I would say that accountants are now running the company.  They ONLY care about the bottom line.  They have no conception about R&D or growing market share.

There are a lot of consumers or users of computers and OS's and Browsers that don't spend much time trying to figure out what Microsoft or any of the publishers/makers of this stuff have on their mind.  We all know it's all about the bottom line and how much money they feel they can make. 

Consumers will tend to use what is available and or what works for them. 

Most businesses I've seen are still using XP... I mean, their people trained on it, their software and peripherals work with it... I agree that W7 is a better.faster OS, but who really wants to spend money in this environment?

Just an addendum: I had heard that capital investments over the past year had gone into computer hardware, not software.

This is only one pf the reasons why I continue to include XP in my WB skins.

I am sure lots of folks appreciate that you do LightStar.

I enjoy looking through Google Analytics, it is very interesting to see what people are using to visit sites.

Windows 7 is the top OS that is used to visit WinCustomize.  XP is still second, but the numbers are dropping steadily.

Nothing in those charts says which browser those XP users are using, though there is probably some correlation between browser choice and the *reason* they're still using XP.

Price + recession would be the answer.

No reason not to think the browser distribution would be any different than the OS distribution, is there? 

And I'd agree with kona as to the reason why, seeing I alluded to that in the OP.

Okay, so then are we to take from this that new computer sales are declining also, since most new computer sales I take it would have the lastest OS on them?

If folks are building their own computers are they still able to buy older versions of OSs to install on them?  If not then are the number of folks building new home computers down?

oops

Not supporting XP is a huge mistake. Every XP user I know hates explorer and they not about to go back when they upgrade their computer.

I would say the sale of new PCs are down. As well as home built PCs. Perhaps people are using old XP discs from previous installs or switching to Linux.

It's a pretty big assumption to make from two isolated sets of data that everyone moving off XP is also moving off IE at the same time.

There's little compelling reason for an average user to care about the latest version of IE (either they get it on a new machine or Windows Update pushes it on them, but they're unlikely to go out of their way for it), and likewise, people using alternatives aren't going to change their preference because they upgraded to Win7.

Trends on IE version might be a little more enlightening, but in the absence of that, it's much more sensible to assume that the steady growth of Chrome since its release and the steady growth of Win7 since its release (each at the cost of the previous market leaders) aren't directly related.

The statistics in the OP would seem to point to the theroy of reduced PC purchases but I can't seem to come up with the correct search on the internet to find any report for new computer purchases.  I don't know how you would could up with the number of home builts other than OS purchases.

Worst of all? The newest browsers are ugly, and without any 'personality'.

You could access the individual sales records of each PC supplier and compare them with OS purchases but that I think would be haphazard at best considering XP is no longer on store bought PCs. Neither is Vista for that matter. As for browsers. All Windows comes with IE8 or now that 9 is out with that one. Since the other browsers are freebies I suppose you could add up all the downloads and try for a ratio between that and PC sales versus home builts. Tedious to say the least. I wouldn't want to try it though.

Agreed.

Remember Netscape Navigator/Communicator, kona? Crap but they were beauties. May AOL rot in Perdition.

They need to learn to make/release OS's slower. For the last few years of the 90's and early into 2000 it seemed like all MS was doing was putting a new number on the box, adding a couple bugs, and re-releasing last year's OS. The jump between XP and Vista was a total sh!t storm and MS knows it. Hell, when I built this system Win 7 wasn't out yet, Vista had been out for a few years (and was still a P.O.S.), and XP was getting old. Still, I picked up a fresh boxed copy of XP 64. A year later I bought Win 7x64 Ultimate when it was released. Anyone who built a gaming rig and did their research (before Win7) knew that they needed XP Pro 64 and to avoid Vista like the black plague. That should have told MS right there that they should have held off and slowed down, to protect their own interests if for nothing else, but nooooo, of course they didn't....and now they're paying the price for it.

RavenX no matter how bad Vista may have been it sold and Microsoft made money.  They then made some more money bringing out Window 7.  Oh, and Windows 8 is on the way and guess what, they are going to make more money. 

My main PC at home still has XP on it.  Why?  Because it works and no reason to upgrade.  When build a new PC in a year or so I'll put Win 7 on it.

At work it's all XP and IE7.  Why?  Because to upgrade 110,000 users costs tens upon tens of millions of dollars which nobody wants to spend.  All corporate apps run fine and thus it is what it is.  Last I heard they plan to have a pilot of Win 7 going by end of 2011 and perhaps a rollout of Win 7 starting end of 2012...maybe.

Yeap, they never learn. At best they should release a new OS every 5 to 10 years. Especially when half of the time they're asking whole corporations to upgrade every system they currently have in use, and that gets pretty damn expensive, even for smaller businesses.

Correct, but to bring us to reality: OS's are like cars, etc. in our mercantile society.... with planned obsolescence, along with competitive "Keeping up with the Firefoxes next door." Profits are based on sales. So, there's a built in profit motive to make it very good, but not great.

Remember... most powerful word to describe a product? "New." 

Windows 8 should be out in beta this year I hear. If you want a more ridiculous release schedule try Linux. Most flavors release a new version of the OS every 6 months.