Is Windows XP set to be toppled anytime soon?

Persuasion

Yet given how strong a sales pitch it made with the release of Windows 7, just how close is Microsoft coming to persuading people to change? Certainly tracing the Windows XP user statistics for the past year offers some clues. Back in July 2009, for instance, Windows XP usage stood at 72.93 per cent. And since November 2009, it's lost around seven per cent in market share. That's the biggest fall it's experienced in some time.

In the same time period, Vista too has been in decline, but it's been far steadier. In July 2009, Vista's market share stood at 17.9 per cent, and it's lost just over two per cent in the course of a year. The biggest single month drop came at the start of the year, where it nearly lost a full point of share between January and February. And since then the product has been in slow and steady decline.

Which thus leaves Windows 7. This is where Microsoft is pinning its hopes, putting together a package that accommodates many of the criticisms levelled at Vista, and providing a scaleable operating system that sits comfortably across different platforms.

And it does seem to be enjoying some success in getting people to upgrade. For the past few months, it's been gaining market share at a rate of around on per cent per month, and while its rate of acceleration is slowly, it's still easily going to overtake Vista in the next couple of months.