14 DAY TRIAL // They say Windows more or less lost the battle with mobile operating systems and Microsoft's PC platform is no longer the leader in charts worldwide, but the United States government begs to differ.
In a new bunch of statistics provided by the United States government, Windows is once again crowned the king of operating systems in the country, followed by rivals iOS, Android, and Macintosh. And by the way, Linux is nowhere to be found on this list.
But before starting the party, there are several things that need to be considered.
First and foremost, this chart only refers to the operating system that Americans used to access government sites in the last 90 days, so they're not really relevant for the whole Internet.
Windows Phone didn't make the list
Secondly, Windows is indeed the leader, but the figures we see here only concern the desktop version of the operating system, and while both iOS and Android are among the leaders, Windows Phone didn't make the list.
Specifically, Windows is the top operating system with a share of 58.5 percent, followed at a long distance by iOS with 16.4 percent and Android with 13.9 percent. Apple's Mac OS X is fourth with 9.2 percent.
Version-wise, Windows 7 is the clear leader with 41.6 percent, while Windows 8.1 is the runner-up with 9.8 percent. What's more shocking is that 3.4 percent of the Americans still use Windows XP to access government websites, despite the fact that support for this OS version ended in April 2014, so it's now really vulnerable to hacks and exploits.
If you're wondering how come Windows Phone is not included in this list, there's a good reason for that. Right now, Microsoft's mobile operating system has a very small market share in the United States (according to third-party data, WP is powering 2.8 percent of the smartphones in the country), so only few people actually use it to access government sites.
Microsoft hopes to change this with Windows 10, but there's no doubt that the company would need years to boost the sales of its smartphones in a country where iOS is by far the best-selling mobile platform.