Back in December, Brett brought some interesting information about the sales of Windows 8 vs. Windows 7. Yesterday some not-so-good-news dropped about the state of PC shipments in the last quarter.
So I thought I would do a follow-up because the last quarter here at Puget Systems has been great, contrary to the market at large. After reading the news yesterday I began to wonder how much of an impact Windows 8 really was having in the greater consumer PC market. I concede there are larger market forces at play here and the mobile market is a beast, for sure. But, there is a big difference in strategy among PC system builders.
Choice.
Yes, as Brett pointed out, we still offer Windows 7 along with Windows 8, various Linux releases, heck, even Windows XP; you can pick your flavor. However, about 60% of the PC market is controlled by 5 companies. When you walk into your local retailer you will see rows and rows of their machines…almost all on Windows 8. After buying the bulk of 60 million Windows 8 licenses the major PC manufacturers had little choice than to open an ice cream shop with just one flavor: Windows 8.
So given a choice, what are people deciding to install? I ran some sales figures starting from when Brett's numbers left off up thru yesterday and here are the results:
As you can see there is still overwhelming demand for Windows 7. Personally, I am still running Windows 7 and let my upgrade offer expire. I have my reasons for sticking with Win7 and I am happy with my choice.
Did you make the switch to Win8 or not? What do you think, did Windows 8 speed up the decline of PC sales last quarter?