The tablet OS already outnumbers Linux on the desktop
While the Linux community keeps proclaiming the next year as the “year of the Linux desktop”, the iPad from Apple has now blown past Linux on the desktop in terms of market share. That is pretty stunning that in about 2 years the iPad has managed to surpass Linux which has been trying to capture the desktop for all of these years. The stats come from over 3 million web surfers as measured by StatCounter.
According to the report at Pingdom, these stats do not include smartphones and other small screen devices. So this is not iPad and iPhone and iTouch. It is iPad only. Of course this also means that Android phones are not included either. I don’t know if they can tell Android phones from Android tablets. I suppose they could by people using Android 3.0 versus 2.x. But in any event my guess is that Android tablets wouldn’t make a dent yet anyway.
So another indication of the failure of Linux to infiltrate the desktop and yet another indication (as if their recent quarter results weren’t enough) of how successful Apple’s iPad has become.
Other stats in this chart shows that Microsoft Windows still has well over 80% of the market (closer to 85%). Mac OSX is approaching 15%. That is one of the highest estimates of their market share I have seen and is independent of the iPad and iPhone.
The good news for Linux supporters though is that I think the whole way we measure web users will be different very soon. The idea that the desktop has a monopoly on the web is changing. The iPad showing up is only one indication. The day is coming (if it is not already here) where more web users will be from non-desktop devices than from them. Smartphones, tablets and other devices will all have their own categories and should outpace desktops.
That doesn’t mean desktops will go away. There will be for a long time to come a sizeable chunk of eyes that view the web via the desktop. But the trend is clear, the era of the PC monopoly is ending. Lucky for Linux too, it has a much better chance of making a dent in tablets, phones and other devices.
