mac sales goes up a bit and mac becomes the dominant OS in the world. lol that's funny.

With Microsoft laying off another 800 employees today, you can bet your level of service will be going up from a company losing market cap as quickly as the Titanic takes on water.

Maybe thats why the Guppies for the screen savers?

b Microsoft cans another 800 people /b
http://tinyurl.com/yhsn9nf

So maybe the usage of windows machine is decreasing because Microsoft is canning so many people?

All the while Apple is posting record sales...certainly looks good for Snow Leopard.

Ahh I remember calling Microsoft for some more keys to reinstall my software again and again, with all its swiss cheese malware holes. I think we all know why people are not using windows and IE as much, there are just better software and platforms to run on.

Its really just that simple people

What are these guys on? I want some!!! Did they steal my crack? :)

All you people commenting about this horribly "biased" article, take a look in the goddamn mirror.
How can you be so unbelievably stupid? How horrible is your reading comprehension that you don't understand the writer was being OBVIOUSLY sarcastic? Making fun of the original article.
You people need to kill yourself. I am not joking, it makes ME want to kill myself realizing just how stupid my fellow human beings are.

Funny as!
I work for a little 2 man computer shop. We have been putting customers off for a few months now and telling them to wait before upgrading. Besides the obvious benefit to us the customer gets a good stable O/S with their new machine.
We have been inundated since the week before Windows 7 was officially released and my hands are cracked and sore from building new machines for customers. So much for Apple!
I have been using Windows 7 for a while now thanks to a Technet membership and while not being a huge Microsoft fan to begin with (FreeBSD Rocks) I must say that this is a very nice, fast and stable O/S. The only issues I have seen so far (twice) have been with older hardware on the 64 bit version due to manufacturers not bothering to write drivers for the platform.

Hi,
Please don't confuse OS and Computers.

The real question is:
- What percentage of WinXP users plan to buy/change computers.

Once you get the answer, then you can assume that part of these users has to decide among : PC+Win7 versus Apple+MacOS.

And then you can make a faire comparison.

Yeah funny article.

Put another way Windows 7 in just 1 week, managed to get nearly half as much market share as Apple have taken the past 20+ years to achieve.

Well, I've had a little "feel" of Win 7 and its not the greatest. It can't out match the Mac OSX. The Win 7 is just an upgrade of Vista and really has many burrowed features fro the Mac OSX. Thumbs up for Apple.

...but I like it :)

Yes it's really funny to see how people go ape over this article, not just the mac fans but the microsoft people aswell. xD

This article really made my morning and broke the dull monotony of the class, thank you for that. :)

Well back to the ye olde voleware training.

Actually you can run any operating system on a mac through 3rd party software like "Vmaware Fusion" who just released 3.0 or "Parralells" just released 4.0 or many others but those are the top candidates and through those they support windows 7 witch I might add is 100 times better then vista who was a recreation of windows me who "MS" wiped under the rug with XP and now they are doing again with vista.

And Macs actually all Unix based systems are naturally safer then windows because of the way there built with kernel and security number 1 take for example windows they hardcoded Internet explorer in the kernel so if a hacker wanted to get in and hose your system they can bypass the API and security straight to the kernel you cannot uninstall "IE" and Macs all the newer ones Mac Osx run a 64bit on most apps and os but Snow leopard runs 64 all around and the hardware is very impressive actually they sell the newer macs with intel i7 cores in them.

windows just needs to take a cold hard look at there code and just make a completely new os stop supporting legacy and move on.

another point to macs is how many viruses has ever taking macs completely out of commission hardly any and when they did it was fixed immediately

moral is you pay more for all around better system

p.s the article is quite funny

After reading the article and most of the comments, I had to add my own comments, since this is just too funny.

Here we have Apple fans bashing Microsoft because of Vista, which I am using right now, and enjoy quite much thank you.

They claim that Mac OS is easier, less cluttered, ect. That is correct. That's because Apple doesn't allow any 3rd party hardware, thus they are "safer" than Microsoft.

Then you look at the fan boys as they claim they are safe because they have Mac, then they say they use bootcamp to run their favorite games. How are you any safer?

And finally, Apple fans, go ahead and keep your expensive Macs away from me, while I enjoy my fully customizable Windows 7 machine that runs the majority of software. And I'll have hope that Microsoft lets Apple keep office 2007.

By my calculations, at the current rate, Mac OSX will gather 50% of the market share in about 50 years. Microsoft, Watch Out! You are hemorrhaging market share! In 30 years, Microsoft market share will drop below 50% ! Better invest in Apple now.

The Inquirer seems to be turning into the The New Yorker of Technology. Nice hidden jokes, but probably only 10% of all people will get it.

I couldn't stop laughing on this one, thank you for doing what you do Nick, once again you've proven to write a triple A humorous article. Pure class.

Sad about 90% of everyone else are retarded though, but their comments have been oh so entertaining as well.

So, you consider that an OS that is out for 12 days and gets 2.15% of market share is a complete fail, compared with another OS that is out of 10 years and has a 5.27% market share? You are in the wrong planet mister.

Great satire on the state of technology reporting. Worthy of Fake Steve.

It must be annoying to then have so many morons fail to get the satire or the joke.

Keep it up.

Think about that, now matter how you slice it, Apple is almost as big as Microsoft is. Remember too that Microsofts market cap is made up from its gaming consoles, its Zune, its Microsoft keyboards/Mice and joysticks and its mobile windows.

In other words, everything Apple has been building has been selling well, so well that the company is basically the same size as Microsoft.

I switched from Microsoft after wasting too much of my time rebuilding my PC, with Apple while it hasnt been flawless, its been certainly a lot better. Tried Ubuntu and had similar problems as with my PC. 5 years now on my mac and decided to pick up a used Macbook from Ebay for $300 with the intel processor so I can program an iphone application. Then came out Snow Leopard and after instal, it freed up 17GB of hard drive space, breathing new life into my machine, with increased speed and room to grow.

Yeah I have windoze running on it too, using free VirtualBox to run a Corel despecle to clean up scans . If I was dumb enough to buy a new PC today, I'd probably use boot 132 and run snow leopard on it to get a real machine. As it stands now, I'm very happy with my Mac.

I would think alot of people who own PC's today will be using the boot 132 method and installing Leopard on their PC, saving them money and getting a fast tight compact OS. Just like the windows driver support, its developing with time.

Any new computer purchasers should consider buying a used Mac, or if they can afford it, buying a new one. I'm glad I did.

News next month,

AmigaOS 4.1 retakes the thrown. OSX follows a close second and Windows 7 relegated to a niche product

More anti-Apple flamebait from The Inquirer. I'm so very shocked. Yawn.

The article's authors and headline writers forgot to add /sarcasm tags to the story to keep the humour-impaired from taking it seriously.

"I bought an Intel based MinMac a year and a half ago, and I cant upgrade to the new Mac OSX. Because the Mac Apple sold me does not have a 64bit mode in it. "

You'll no doubt be happy to learn, you've been misinformed on that.

Snow Leopard will run on your Mac Mini just fine. It doesn't need a "64 bit mode".

That's a reference to how the OS boots up, but it hardly matters.

I am using Snow Leopard with my MacBook Pro: it boots in 32 bit mode also.

Mary, (above commentos of) Men.ick, Useing Lesbo 88.8 Trillion server has gotten Stats ALL Mex'd UP. Here:

Windows 7 has officially been a part of the worldwide mass market for more than a week and a half and now makes up more than 3.6 percent of all PCs tracked by research firm Net Applications.

Net Applications tracks OS usage statistics through information reported by internet browser software. On October 21, the day before the official launch, Windows 7 usage was at 1.89 per cent, according to Channel Register. By launch day, the number hit 1.99 per cent, constantly rising to 3.67 percent it hit on November 1.

Throughout October, various versions of Windows made up 92.52 percent of the browsing market, with Mac OS X taking 5.27 per cent, and Linux at 0.96 percent.
We can see linux needs some serious upgrading & in 18 months -=7=- will have 150% of ALL Bots on -=7=-. just in timeframe of slyp1.

Join COOL crowd & Get NEW -=7=- Machine & NOT Marry Nick, NOT Until Harvest. Its' Gonnads BEE White WEDDING Bot'ld.

drashek

Someone kindly inform the class how one upgrades a three year old G5 to OS 10.6, after paying a fortune for it so recently and expecting to enjoy a reasonable life from it and the ability to upgrade it's OS?

Now lets compare upgrading a three year old PC...

Yeah that's US. Just a bunch of dumb a$$e$ who get by with putting men on the moon and such trivial techy stuff as that.

It was a satirical article. SARCASM/HUMOR! Christ people - get over yourselves. Lol...

It'll take a bit more than a couple of home users to make a dent in all the infrastructure MS laid in everything from homes to schools to full fledged enterprise businesses.

Sure people arent switching from xp but it doesn't mean they'll go mac, where software and hardware support just aren't as flexible as a MS solution.

That's it! This is my last comment and henceforth I will erase all bookmarks to the inquirer.

@george hamilton

What does stock market cap have to do with Microsoft's OS dominance? This article is about the OS [Operating System] not media players and phones where Apple has been very successful. In the realm of the operating system though, they are indeed a niche. Know your topics and the players within before you make a comment there guy...

I don't know what is worse.. stupid crapple noobs.. or shitty7 noobs

both cleary fucking clueless users.

but good job at Apple.. successful marketing campaigns against retard corp, have managed to get microsuck to dumb down its own OS to a level of that resembling a shitty OSX. Its a pitty there last decent OS was XP, where the explorer wasn't complete shite and well on and on and on, with all the rest of thing that were better but are now shit. Soon Apple will be able to compete much more easier with Windows by the very fact that Windows is become more dumbed down with shitty noob design and crap changes aimed at the noobtards who don't don't know any better anyway.

Windows 7 FOR idiots.

Apple is such a "niche" player...

AAPL Market Cap (Millions)171,710.000

MSFT Market Cap (Millions)248,793.000

The problem of sarcasm is that bad readers or morons just don't get it Nick. A lot of the scathing comments above show just how dumb some people can be lol!

A brilliant piece of writing however. It's always lovely to point out the stupidity of the Apple-friendly press and fanboys who accept everything they read at face value rather than questioning and basing their decisions on real needs.

I'm loving Windows 7 so far, although WMP12 irritates me for videoing playing as the bloody window won't stay the same size/position as I could make it do in WMP11 and below. It's a small gripe though as I only use it for that. If only Microsoft could strongarm certain dodgy companies now into releasing drivers for Windows 7 (64-bit in particular), it'd be even better. Only current piece of unusable hardware is my TV card though, due to Winfast/Leadtek being arses.

Ok so while the obvious sarcasm is funny the article does make a decent point being that MS is losing market share to the competition at a rate not seen since the days of win95. I mean both OSX and Linux have added atleast 50% to as much as 100% to their market share since the launch of Vista. Now while I don't see either one of them replacing Windows anytime soon it is safe to say that unless Windows 7 really is the saviour to their reputation that MS is hoping it is odds are that trend is gonna continue until MS is either on even ground with it's competition or turns into the underdog. I say that because OSX is cheaper and Linux is free with both continueing to improve their ease of use and functionality in comparison to Windows, hell at this point Linux and OSX are probably more compatible with older Windows software via WINE then Vista and 7 are.

The most powerful computer ever. Actually OS X is nice and their hardware is too but expensive.
Apple just broke off support for the ATOM CPU with their latest update. OS X will never compete against MS as long as Apple constricts it to their hardware.

Electronista and the majority of the general media population write their stories from Macs. When they look around and see their peers patching their Macs with SnowJob, then they get a sense that it's winning.

One way they back it is with Marketing comparisons, which is apples to oranges...literally. I don't understand how internet traffic accounts for sales at all. Do you?

And I highly doubt the speculation that XP users are going to Macs. Again, they probably got that scientific data from the latest "I'm a Mac" ad that states that drivel as a fact, but with no numbers to back it.

"CEO Steve Ballmer had warned that Microsoft would only see a slight sales boost from Windows 7 and so doesn't expect the software to immediately restore fiscal health."

I do not believe Win7 hit it's expected sales either. Because we don't have to buy it now. Millions of us have chosen to stick with the RC (for free) until March 2010 approaches, so all of us using it are missing from any marketing statistic. To be realistic, RC users should be factored into the 2010 2nd quarter predictions 'cause we ARE going to get one version or the other. Five computers here, and will be ready if I keep buying one copy each month.

But yes, I did understand Nick's article was tongue-in-cheek. Knew it coming in from the attention grabbing title alone.

Can you upgrade directly from Puma
to Snow Leopard, since those versions
came out in the same years as XP and W7?

Unlike Microsoft, Apple actually released multiple
versions of their OS in between Puma and SL.

Vista doesn't count, since most people apparently
skipped that can of worms.

Sunny Guy

For all the fools out there that can't see the sarcasm in this article come on now.

Apple will take over the world! .00001% market share at a time. Let's see, that means by the dawn of the 4th Great Expansion in the 8th Millennium or there abouts.

Having grown up in the Southeast of the good ole US of A there is a word we had for people who could not quite grasp sarcasm - idgits. Seems to be a few of them out and about in these responses to this cheeky article...

Most probably they protect M$ because they paid to :)

But after all, it's funny to read comments of people with "opinion" :)
I guess most of M$ supporters never used OTHER OS. Unlike Mac/Linux users which usually experienced with at least two and made REAL CHOICE.

This is funny. Mostly because of the inferiority-complexed riddled people angrily commenting on it.

To all who posted ignorantly, please read the full article before you post. Also make sure that you actually have some sort of a sense of humor...

I bought an Intel based MinMac a year and a half ago, and I cant upgrade to the new Mac OSX. Because the Mac Apple sold me does not have a 64bit mode in it. Not to mention all the PPC Macs out there that cant upgrade either. The person who wrote this piece has no idea about the computer market place, and should try to find out a little more about the reality of apple and not the Hype.

Why do people feel such a need to protect Microsoft? All they saw within the article was an attack, they didn't actually read it.

Thanks for the laugh :)

Can you upgrade directly from Puma to Snow Leopard, since those versions came out in the same years as XP and W7?

Funny but I'm actually thinking about moving to OSX instead of 7 just to get away from DRM, activation, built-in obsolescence, limited backward compatibility, shortening product/support cycles...

I'm still using 2000 Pro, but I need to make a move by July when MS drops all support.

Apple people dont get it and never will even when you think you win your losing but perception is great it keeps a lot of attorneys off Microsoft.

Apple people are no different than linux people thinking they are making some sort of difference to Microsoft's bottom line. For some reason they dont use Microsoft. This is perfectly fine were glad to lose the problem people from the windows side which is what Apple seems to be capturing. Glad they are Apples problems now.

A good portion of them cant get by without Microsoft Office which Microsoft has a higher profit margin on. Even if they lose out on the OS they get you with a die hard application.

Microsoft is also an Apple shareholder. When Apple does good so does Microsoft.

Thanks to Apple Microsoft cant be considered as much of an OS monopoly. OS2 died out and Apple took its place. Apple is also taking market share that would go to Linux. Apple gets a few more points from there but their price tag keeps most people away. Some still install Microsoft on their shiny expensive apple hardware.

I know someone is screaming we got Blackberry too but that's just RIM able to sell a Blackberry to an Apple user which is one less iPhone being sold. Again Apple users think they win when they are losing again.

The reality is your not cutting into Microsoft's profits at all. You will never see Bill Gates pump your gas to eat.

To be attacked by an Apple user who switched is like being attacked by someone who thinks starbucks $4.00 coffee is better than McDonalds $1.00 coffee because they paid more for it and it has a squirt of whip cream. Yet McDonalds reports year over year profits and you'll be back when you realize the coffee isn't better on the other side it just costs more.

Apples biggest problems arent coming from Microsoft. I guess none of you have seen Google's Android commercials targeting the Apple iPhone? Your enemy isnt Microsoft that war was over years ago. Your enemy is Steve Jobs ticking off some of the other big names out there like Google and most recently Adobe, the FCC, thier loyal followers with exploding batteries and not acknowledging the problem. Microsoft is the least of your worries. But go ahead what will happen to Apple when Microsoft decides they had enough and stops making office for you. Your options are then Open Office which is not for coporations or giving all your information to google. Once again you lose.

Market share might be a distorting figure. Be interesting to know what proportion of actual operating system sales were Win 7 and what proportion Mac Leopard.

Bet Mac's actually higher that you'd imagine i.e. 20%, in which case lets hope the competition makes Microsoft bothered enough to make some genuinely innovative/nice to use software. Windows 7 is a step in the right direction. Anyone who has tried Windows Mobile 6.5 know's those Microsoft employees must just love putting successful products on the shelf for years on end, without bothering to continue improving/innovating it once they know it sells. They only seem to update products when they have some decent competition to give them a good kick up the a?se and to nick some decent ideas from ;)

Im sorry go back to sleep, this is the most retarded argument I have ever wasted my time on reading.

Funny stuff!

Because at least I know with a Mac they will always allow me to upgrade easily (unless they stop supporting my CPU architecture, its a Wednesday, I'm in the wrong hemisphere, or I question Apple).

TBH anyone who thinks doing an "Upgrade" install is a good idea on most OSes is a good idea probably shouldnt be allowed near a computer. Unless its a C64, because I beleive thats what fills the void inbetween Apple's 5% and MSes 90%.

Because C64s rule.

…for people to upgrade their PCs and get a bundled version of Win7.

I read a post there the other day commenting on Fermi and it's graphical applications. It posted pictures from a chinese forum stating they were actual GT300 renderings, when in fact they came from a stop frame video shoot for a completely unrelated video/media show. Absolutely awful journalism and absolutely not what tech folk should be reading.

I can not believe how many people do not understand this is a joke, yet they can still figure out how to get out of bed in the morning.

First,because of all the misery with vista I decided not to pay for windows 7.
I easily found windows 7 from Microsoft own web site, downloaded it and am running the home version, the equivalent of what version I had with vista. Finding a SLIC 2.1 activator was also easy. Being a OEM version it seems to be the same as if I got it with a new pc, time will tell.
Normally I believe in paying for my software but vista was the exception. Since it is vista service pack 3, I see now need in paying for it.If they find the activation crack and stop it, no loss since I dual boot to Ubuntu 9.10 anyway. This is just so I can watch netflix online movies and show Microsoft how little I think of them, It kinds feels good. Windows 7 looks nice but still has a hard time deleting files and opening large files.And there's still the DRM. If they ever make a os worth paying for I will buy it.
Os x is a better os in my mind, but apples hardware is only average and has problems with many other devices. When it comes down to it Linux does the best of both solid os and hardware support. I dont care about market share and other BS, just what works for me.

This article is just unreal! Market share?
90% plus of the world's computers use Windows. Also, how does an Windows XP user 'sign up' for OS X? As if Microsoft has anything to fear from Apple!

Not only is the Electronista article biased and completely "Fox News like", but you passisng this propaganda around shows the author is biased as well. I have a feeling that Apple will abandon the computer (at least the PC) market before too long so that they may concentrate more on the iPhone/iPods and the like. It was Steve Jobs himself that said they would push the Mac around as much as possible until something better comes along. I believe handhelds are Jobs' "something."

I love you!

@Topgun966 -- wtf? you missed all the sarcasm in the whole story .. I mean all of it ffs... not one word written isn't a stab. .. sheesh ..lol. Not Tommy Cruise are ya?

The Mighty OSX could even reach a whole 6% in ummm ..never! good 15 years its been there .. so why change anything to such a successful product?

See comment title.

Wow, I am assuming the person that wrote this article has not used not been out from a rock in say o the past 10 years. You know nothing about computers or the IT world in general. Go write about that tree you saw yesterday.

MS did a nice job with W7.

... USA is full of numb drones that will eat this news, and won't bother asking some IT dude if it's true ;)

But who gives a rats ass about them anyway :D

LOL!