14 DAY TRIAL // As we've reported to you earlier today, market share figures provided by StatCounter indicate that Windows 7 continues to be the world's number one desktop operating system with more than 50 percent of the PCs currently running it, and stats coming from Net Applications seem to confirm this.
But figures are a little bit different this time, and while Windows 7 continues to be the top desktop OS worldwide, its market share is bigger. No less than 58.04 percent of the PCs in the world are said to be running Windows 7, while Windows XP continues to be the runner-up with a share of 16.94 percent.
The third place goes to Windows 8.1, which has slowly improved its market share to eventually reach 10.55 percent, while Windows 8 dropped to a disappointing 3.96 percent.
Windows 8's score, however, isn't too surprising, given the fact that most people switch to Windows 8.1, which is offered in the form of a free upgrade for all PCs and tablets running the core OS.
Windows powering more than 91 percent of the desktops
They say Windows is slowly losing ground and alternative platforms such as Mac OS X and Linux are quickly gaining ground, but in reality, statistics show that Microsoft has no reason to be worried that it could lose the leading position, at least as far as the desktop is concerned.
Windows is currently installed on a total of 91.22 percent of PCs across the world, while Apple's own Mac is far behind with 7.28 percent. Linux is even more behind with 1.50 percent.
Overall, Windows is doing much better right now, and there's no doubt that the upcoming launch of Windows 10 is going to help, as the new OS will be offered as a free upgrade to those on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
According to sources, Windows 10 is expected to launch in the second half of 2015, but users can already give it a try if they register for the Windows Insider program.