Windows 7 still market leader
According to Forrester, Windows 7 held 20.9 percent of the corporate computer market while Windows XP held 60 percent of the business computer market at the end of March 2011. The share of Windows XP has declined from 69 percent last year. The Forrester study included over 400,000 client computers that were being used by 2500 companies. The study conducted was for the period between Q2 2010 and Q1 2011.

Windows 7 deployment is growing
According to the study, as the age of the hardware components increase, the deployment of the Windows 7 operating systems is witnessing an increase. The infrastructure and operations teams link the tie-ups with the normal computer upgrade cycle during their business. The deployment of Windows 7 on the new computer market is still higher at 31 percent. This is estimated to increase to approximately eighty-three percent over the next one year.

Reduction in Windows Vista
Another factor that is increasing the deployment of Windows 7 is the end of the life cycle for Windows Vista. The deployment of Vista was at its all-time high of fourteen percent in November 2009 and since then has reduced by more than double. More companies are providing an upgrade to their employees with the Windows 7 Service Pack. Although, the deployment rate for Windows XP reduced by nine percent in the last one year, this Operating System continues to remain the most deployed OS on the desktop computers.

IE usage declining

Another problem that Microsoft is facing is the reduced usage of its web browser, Internet Explorer. This is despite the Company’s effort of bundling the IE8 along with its Windows 7 operating system. The overall usage of the Internet Explorer has declined as the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers are gaining more popularity amongst web users. Google Chrome usage was estimated at fourteen percent while the share of Mozilla Firefox was at eighteen percent at the end of the first quarter in the current calendar year.

Windows operating systems are market leaders
The Forrester report showed that overall market share enjoyed by all the various versions of the Windows Operating Systems at 87.6% at the end of March 2011. Windows Vista share was 6.2% and other OS, such as Windows NT, Windows 2000 and others share was estimated at less than one percent in the number of users who were surveyed. Mac OS share stood at eleven percent and the Linux OS share was 1.4%.