Published by Robert Pogson July 11th, 2011
in technology.
8% of US adults primarily access the Internet through their smart phone. Since smart phone usage is growing by leaps, this is likely to increase. It means that in addition to making good phones and small, cheap personal computers, smart phones are replacing some major usage of personal computers.
Consider what most consumers do with a PC:
browse the web, or
listen to or watch media obtained from CD or the web
The smart phone can do these things as well and probably at lower cost.
According to Pew Internet, 35% of US adults own a smart phone so this phenomenon can triple. Many youth will thrive on smart phones as well. Take that, Wintel, your section of the pie is getting smaller.
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson July 11th, 2011
in technology.
Many are afraid Google knows too much and some of those may work at M$.
| % Visits from OS |
11/1/09 – 2/1/10 |
11/1/10 – 2/1/11 |
Difference |
| Windows |
89.9% |
84.8% |
-5.1% |
| Macintosh |
4.5% |
5.2% |
+0.7% |
| Linux |
0.6% |
0.7% |
+0.1% |
| Other |
5% |
9.3% |
+4.3% |
That’s Google’s analysis of UserAgent strings from hundreds of thousands of users of Google Analytics, web sites scattered around the globe (“Data contained here comes from all websites which have opted-in anonymous data sharing with Google Analytics.”). It’s just as scientific as Net Applications and just as biased but at least we know another source of information. One thing is clear, that other OS is on a downward share of the WWW.
GNU/Linux is hanging in there, which means cranking out 10% more installations or so annually, millions to be sure. Android/Linux is taking a large share of “Other”, no doubt, taking share from M$.
What is different is how rapidly the share is changing. Up til now we had seen 1 or 2 percentage points change per annum. Now the change is much more serious. Android/Linux, in particular, has a shot at hundreds of millions of users in the next year or so and that’s a huge word-of-mouth advertising base for products other than smart phones and tablets. We already see a few netbooks running Android/Linux.
Nothing prevents Android and ARM from taking permanent share from M$ for non-mobile computing as well in thin clients, notebooks and desktops. People who do what smart phones allow them on the web will want to do the same at desks or tables. There is a market. That’s why M$ is porting to ARM, to try to head that off.
It remains to be seen how long it will take M$ to get into the game. Will it be at half-time or will the game be over by the time “8″ is released? There is room for Android/Linux to increase its rate of uptake as manufacturers catch up with demand. The popularity of the tablet caught many by surprise but they are clearly a product, along with the smart phone, whose time has come.
- Robert Pogson
17439
12767
206
3
2
23882 
11844 
11696 
4639 
4255 
1642 
198 
14 
2 
0 
0 
0 
Recent Comments