Free upgrades pay off for Apple and Microsoft in November

In tech terms, October and November are the doldrums, that quiet period after students return to school and before the holiday shopping frenzy begins.

So it’s not surprising that the latest NetMarketShare numbers on worldwide operating-system usage barely changed in November. Windows usage overall is essentially unchanged, with Windows 8.x and Windows 7 up slightly at the expense of the fading Vista and XP. Collectively, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 accounted for 9.3 percent of web usage in November, with XP still hovering above the 30 percent mark as the clock ticks closer to its end-of-support date. (See the chart at the end of this post.)

In the browser space, the three leading desktop browsers barely budged, with Internet Explorer at 58.36 percent, Firefox at 18.54 percent, and Google Chrome at 15.44 percent.

There were a few interesting bits of statistical data buried in this month’s data dump, though. Both Microsoft and Apple released upgrades to their flagship operating systems in late October. Windows 8.1 is free to Windows 8 users, and OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) is free to users of OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion), and 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

So how have those free upgrades gone? After one full month, Apple and Microsoft have successfully convinced roughly 30 percent of their respective installed bases to upgrade. (The exact numbers: 28.4 percent for Windows 8+, 33.9 percent for OS X 10.6+.) This chart shows the percentage of the installed base for each month for the relevant operating system families.

Data provided by > Net Applications

If price isn’t a barrier to an upgrade for either platform, why isn’t the number 100 percent? The obvious reason is that users are rightfully gun-shy of big upgrades like this. The upgrade process is never guaranteed to be successful, even on the much more tightly controlled Apple hardware platform. In Apple’s case, Mavericks came with an assortment of bugs and issues that had even Apple loyalists urging a wait-and-see attitude.

Both companies have a profound interest in moving their customers to the newest version. Support costs drop and managing security is by definition easier if you can concentrate on a single version instead of supporting four major Windows versions, as Microsoft is currently doing.

You can expect to see the shares of Windows 8.1 and OS X Mavericks rise over the next few months. When I update this chart next month, I expect to see the Windows 8.1 numbers significantly higher, as Microsoft and its hardware partners sell tens of millions of new PCs in the holiday season, most of them running Windows 8.1.

But the dream of both companies—of operating systems that update automatically and are never out of date—is still another major release or two away. User inertia and (for Windows users) corporate conservatism will guarantee that.

A quick check of the other big metrics company, StatCounter, shows impressive gains for Windows 8.1 as well, although the percentages differ from the NetMarketShare numbers. StatCounter has the combined share of Windows 8 and 8.1 at 8.6 percent, with roughly 1 in 8 Windows 8 users having upgraded by the end of November.

StatCounter includes mobile operating systems and game consoles in its figures, so it's difficult to compare directly with NetMarketShare numbers. Excluding those operating systems and normalizing the numbers to include only Windows/OS X/Linux/Chrome OS, the share for Windows 8 and 8.1 combined is 9.3 percent, exactly the same as NetMarketShare's report. (StatCounter doesn’t break out figures for OS X versions, so that comparison isn’t possible.)

StatCounter's November figures are also encouraging for the XP-must-die crowd, with XP checking in at 19.3 percent. Both companies show Windows 8 usage outstripping all versions of OS X combined, and the NetMarketShare numbers show that Windows 8.1 alone is used more than any single version of OS X. Oh, and one final tidbit: Chrome OS, which powers Google's Chromebooks, still doesn't appear in sufficient numbers to make the NetMarketShare reports, but StatCounter shows the web-centric Google OS with a 0.05 percent share of usage worldwide, behind PlayStation but ahead of Windows 2000 and Nintendo.

Here is the desktop OS share chart from NetMarketShare.

Data provided by Net Applications

And here is the operating system chart from StatCounter. As I explain earlier, these figures mix desktop OSes, mobile platforms, and game consoles, so the numbers can't be directly compared to those from NetMarketShare. 

Data provided by StatCounter

Nokia Lumia 2520 RT tablet is available in United States for $400 November 22

Summary: Nokia has announced its tablet Windows 8.1 RT at the Nokia World, and the coming week will be able to pick up one under AT & T contract.

(Image: Nokia)

Nokia announced the Nokia World Lumia 2520 tablet in October. Nokia has announced that this device Windows 8.1 RT will launch in the United States next week.

The Lumia 2520 Nokia launch the AT & T in black November 22 399,99 $ with a two year contract. AT & T is also offering a deal where you can buy a 925 Lumia, 1020, or new 1520 and hit 200 dollars the price of the 2520, making only $199,99 with one of these phones.

One aspect of this tablet which differentiates it from the Microsoft Surface 2 is the integration of wireless cell. I have my third generation iPad LTE and it is much more comfortable and functional than having to tie to a phone and kill two batteries.

Only for AT & T data plans tablets range from $14.99 (250MB) and $50 (5GB). People does not seem to be fans of tablet of contracts in the past so we'll have to see if this price plan works for AT & T and Nokia.

I personally prefer the option of purchasing a month of data when I need it, but then the initial price of the device would go up also. I'm not sure if you can buy it without a contact and what is cost, but it will try to find out. I have just learned that the contract was the price is $584,99. It seems an incredible piece of hardware, but it can be difficult to sell tablets/computers Windows Pro available for much less.

It is interesting that Nokia is bringing some of its technologies advanced on a tablet with the 6.7 camera megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics. I've seen a lot of people using your iPad to take pictures and video and I wonder if this new Lumia now also appears on the road while I'm trying to watch sports.

2520 Lumia seems a piece of sweet hardware and I hope to try it soon. Personally meeting the hardware of Microsoft Surface is also fantastic, so it's great to see another provider, releasing a device Windows high quality premium.

ZDNet related reading

Matthew Miller began using a pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews and opinion pieces since then.

Microsoft: October Patch Tuesday vulnerability patched in November

Summary: [Correction: ] One of the October Internet Explorer vulnerabilities wasn't patched until November

[CORRECTION: My first take on this was just plain wrong. The update I read in the security bulletin was in the October Patch Tuesday bulletin, not the November bulletin. I was partly confused because it's unusual for Microsoft to have Cumulative Updates for Internet Explorer two months in a row, as they did in October and November. My apologies to you and to Microsoft, but what happened is still interesting, so here goes:]

Two days after the October Patch Tuesday updates, Microsoft corrected one of the security bulletins for that month to indicate that they had not in fact patched one of the vulnerabilities listed in it. That vulnerability — CVE-2013-3871 — was, in fact, patched in the November updates, specifically as part of MS13-088: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer.

The initial bulletin was MS13-080: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer — note that both are Cumulative Updates. It originally listed 10 vulnerabilities, one of them CVE-2013-3871. The vulnerability was credited to Simon Zuckerbraun working with HP's Zero Day Initiative.

Microsoft gave essentially no description of the vulnerability, either in October or November, beyond the title: Internet Explorer Memory Corruption Vulnerability.

Symantec has a little more explanation in their description of the bug, although this text is also boilerplate for such a vulnerability:

Microsoft Internet Explorer is prone to a memory-corruption vulnerability. Attackers can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code in the context of the currently logged-in user. Failed attacks will cause denial-of-service conditions. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are affected.

Topics: Security, Windows

Larry Seltzer has long been a recognized expert in technology, with a focus on mobile technology and security in recent years

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Top 10 Android phones (November 2013 edition)

Summary: Time once again to take a tour of a handful of the best Android phones currently available on the market (November 2013). There are a few new handsets, including one for all you pure Android fans. Want something bigger than your average smartphone? If so, there's also a phablet for you to look at!

Looking to replace your old Android phone with something newer and with a little more "oomph"? Here are ten of the best Android-powered phones from big names such as Google, Motorola, and Samsung.

No matter whether you are looking for a consumer handset or something that will be suited to a BYOD role, you're bound to find something of interest here.

If I had to choose one of these, I'd likely go for the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, because it is a powerful, fully-featured handset packed with fantastic features such as an awesome camera, and is also robust enough to put up with a soaking.

However, I have to admit that some of the features present on the Samsung Galaxy S4 make it a great choice for the BYOD crowd. 

(Image: ZDNet)

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.