The data provided by Net applications results from information gathered from 160 million monthly visitors to its hosted websites. The data set is not conclusive, but is a very high representative sampling due to the large number of unique users.
Net Application's full "Operating System Market Share" breakout goes like this by year:
| Year | Windows | Mac | Linux |
| 2004 | 96.36% | 3.25% | 0.29% |
| 2005 | 95.97% | 3.64% | 0.31% |
| 2006 | 94.85% | 4.68% | 0.38% |
| 2007 | 92.91% | 6.40% | 0.46% |
| 2008 | 90.73% | 8.03% | 0.76% |
| January 2009 | 88.26% | 9.93% | 0.83% |
|
Change from Dec'08 to Jan'09 alone |
-0.46% to 88.27% |
+3.12% to 9.93% |
-3.53% to 0.82% |
This chart shows the relative market share by operating system since 2005. Data from Net Application's Market Share (see links below). Compiled by TG Daily.
In 2008, the top 15 operating system's usage breaks out like this: Windows 88.26%, Mac OS X 9.93%, Linux 0.83%, iPhone 0.48%, Playstation 0.04%, Nintendo Wii 0.01%, FreeBSD 0.01%, Sun OS 0.01%, with AIX, HP-UX, SCP, SCO, OpenBSD, OpenVMS and NetBSD rounding out the list (though no percentages were given below two decimal places).
Note: Were this rate of accelerating decline for Windows market share to continue, Microsoft's OS would fall off the charts completely sometime around 2022. At this rate of accelerating increase for Mac's OS, the point of parity with Windows (equal market share) should be reached in or near 2015 - just over 6 years out.
See current charts, 2008 data, 2007 data, 2006 data, 2005 data and 2004 data.