Windows 8 Usage Sinks Below Vista Levels

From DailyTech: Three weeks after its 2009 launch, Windows 7 had seized 4 percent of the operating system (OS) market, and would go on to become the fastest selling OS in Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) history. Three years later and Microsoft has another release -- Windows 8. But some signs point to the operating system as being a sales bust, early on.

Microsoft had bragged weeks ago that it had sold 40 million licenses, a number that it said surpassed sales of Windows 7 for an equivalent period in 2009. But some complained that license sales were not actual device sales; they cite reports of Windows 8 computers languishing on store shelves.

Now the critics have ammo to back those claims. Market research group Net Applications, a research service that tracks traffic across 8,000 affiliates' sites and 3 million registered users, reports that Windows 8 at the end of December accounted for a mere 1.72 percent of traffic.

In other words, after two months Windows 8 appears to have about a third of market share Windows 7 garnered in less than one month. By two months into its lifecycle, Windows 7 has soared to 21 percent of the market's traffic (Windows 7 is now the top PC OS with 45 percent of traffic).

Windows 8's numbers look more like those of Windows Vista -- but even a bit worse. Vista posted about 2.2 percent of the total traffic at the same 2-month point, about a third more than Windows 8's percentage [source].

Merle McIntosh, a product manager SVP at top online computer retailer Newegg, was cautious in his criticism, confirming that Windows 8 "did not explode" onto the market. But he remains hopeful, noting that sales have been slowly creeping upward.

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