Despite Microsoft’s push to get customers onto Windows 11, growth in the market share of the software giant’s latest operating system has stalled, while Windows 10 has made modest gains, according to fresh figures from Statcounter.
This is not the news Microsoft wanted to hear. After half a year of growth, the line for Windows 11 global desktop market share has taken a slight downturn, according to the website usage monitor, going from 35.6 percent in October to 34.9 percent in November. Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market by just under a percentage point to 61.8 percent.
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade. The stats also revealed a small drop in the market share of its Edge browser, despite relentlessly plugging the application in the operating system.
Windows is only relevant because of a few key applications, like MS Office (no, libre office doesn’t come close).
office can be used in a browser and mac so why windows?
The browser editions don’t quite fully work for everything.
A coworker manages to make some excel workbooks that just don’t work in the web version, and makes everyone deal with it.
I’ve had to contend with powerpoint decks with ‘features’ that don’t work in the web. For example, one group told me the only way to get a file was to click the embedded link in the pptx file, which only works with desktop version.
If you have to deal with Teams meetings with screen sharing, well, you can’t control the other person’s screen (for no good reason) and you can’t offer remote control of your own (ok, I understand that one).
I’ll say that 95% of my dealings with Office files can be dealt with between browser based O365 and libreoffice for some of those features, but once in a while I simply have to open desktop Office.
This is the perspective of someone who really dislikes Windows and is willing to deal with this sort of uncertainty to minimize Windows usage. Most people would just not want to futz with the options and go straight to the desktop client, which is the only thing that supports all the Office features.
Because my work enforces a non-english locale and the keyboard shortcuts make no sense 🤷♂️