Interesting stats about different desktop operating system market shares



Windows 7 finally overtakes Windows XP in market share, Mac OS X overtakes Windows Vista »Windows 7 has finally overtaken Windows XP altogether, according to the latest market share data from Net Applications. August 2012 also happens to be the first month that Apple's total Mac OS market share is above that of Windows Vista’s





Some voices heard:

"100% of all OS X users drink water. 100% of drowning victims die in water. All OS X users who drink water will die. Statistics are dumb."

Replies:
"While I agree that statistics can be used in silly ways (as you have demonstrated), I'm not sure how this makes the point that statistics are always dumb. The interesting thing about this statistic about Windows XP is that it has taken Microsoft over 3 years to get a split share between Windows 7 and Windows XP, which shows just how strong Windows XP has been (or how badly Microsoft screwed up with Vista)... or just that the GUI of the OS is becoming increasingly unimportant to users, likely due to the increase of web-based applications over OS-specific applications. That being said, the flaw in your example logic is that "drinking water" and "dying in water" are two different things. Just because someone can lie with statistics doesn't mean the problem is with the statistics themselves. The problem is with the lies. People can also use words to lie, but I think it would be over-the-top to say that language is dumb"


"While your statistics are completely irrelevant to your conclusion as well as being inaccurate (several people drown other substances than water and one can well imagine hospitalized OS X users who get fluids via IV and therefore doesn't drink water)... I still would agree that very little points to OS X making anyone immortal and so yes, all OS X users who drink water will die. Statistics can be very useful – it's just a a matter of interpreting them carefully"

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