After having been commercially destroyed for 3 years windows strikes back with the newest version : Windows 7. The Beta will have been downloaded more than firefox soon. This could be the most successful version of Windows ever as it is even being downloaded by Linux and Mac OSX users out of curiosity, which are normally oblivious to new idea’s especially coming from windows. It provides the improvements of Windows Vista and is even faster than XP enabling it to even run on netbooks. So now we have a full blown state of the art operating system for netbooks. 99% of the people who download it are enthusiastic and the other 1% are filled with prejudice. But the prediction seems true, people have skipped windows Vista and are now going for Windows 7.

My prognosis is that Microsoft will strike back with Windows 7 and once again pulverize the other desktop OS’s. Linux that got its small rise in marketshare by the downfall of Vista will once again lose all of this new gained users, now that Windows is working again, who needs Linux? Take this together with the ability of Windows 7 to run on netbooks and this could mean up to 50% loss for Linux. Mac OSX will do slightly better because the downfall of Vista only inspired Apple to give the marketing of Mac OSX a boost. So people discovered Mac OSX and Mac OSX is more than a decent operating system but this is not the reason why people are buying macs. People buy macs because they have the same brand as the übercool iPods. Buy a Mac or you’re out, this means that the growth of Mac OSX will only slow down and will only mean a slight loss at the release of Windows 7, yes indeed I believe that some Mac OSX users are going to switch to Windows 7 when they have to buy a new computer or are just going to install it on bootcamp. So expect a 20% loss for Apple and a 80% decreased growth.

So the marketshare statistics for 2010, Windows 93,5% Mac OSX 5,5% Linux 0,4% Other 0,6%
If this trend remains we will see a downfall in mac popularity because the Mac frenzy is over, which means :
Windows 96,5% Mac OSX 2,4% Linux 0,3% Other 0,8% 

I seem enthusiastic, don’t I? Well don’t think that this is a bad thing, I’m a developer and one operating system means, having to buy one programming environment and only having to compile code once instead of having to buy three IDE’s, learning the hardest programming languages and having to update three different applications. So I’m very enthusiastic that this is Windows which is the most friendly OS towards developers. But this is also fantastic news for all the Windows users (less for the most hard-core Mac and Linux users because it just isn’t their OS). Do you remember what it was like to see a game in the store and see the big Xbox Logo above it when you only had a gamecube/wii? Well it’s the same thing now, do you see that great application but it’s only available for Mac. Well it will soon be for Windows as well because it is more attractive to developers.

Note that this is a prognosis, things can take an ugly turn.

(Now I’m waiting for the first flame comment by Mac-/Linux Fanboys.)