Could Windows 9 Finally Kill Windows 7?

Windows 7 continues to be the world’s leading operating system on the desktop, and everyone expects it to be extremely difficult to kill, especially due to the growing market share that keeps it on the leading spot of all charts.

And still, Windows 7’s market share increase has slowed down in the latest few months, and partially responsible for this change is the avalanche of Windows 9 rumors which have pointed to a quickly approaching launch of a brand new operating system developed by Microsoft.

Statistics provided by market researcher Net Applications show that Windows 7’s growth ended in July 2014, which was one of the fruitful months in terms of Windows 9 rumors. In June 2014, Windows 7 had a market share of 50.55 percent, growing to 51.22 percent the next month. In August, Windows 7 dropped 0.01 percent to 51.21 percent.

StatCounter data also indicates that Windows 7 adoption is slowing down these days, again due to what could be the result of Windows 9 rumors.

Last month, for example, Windows 7 had a share of 55.67 percent, according to StatCounter figures, up slightly from 55.33 percent the month before.

Windows 9 speculation could have an impact on Windows 7 adoption pretty much because those seeking a new operating system might delay the move to another operating system for a few more months in order to see what Microsoft’s software brings new.

According to people familiar with the matter, Microsoft might unveil the very first public beta of Windows 9 this month, thus allowing consumers to see what’s new in this operating system months before the public launch.

As far as the full version of the operating system is concerned, sources say that Microsoft could release it in April 2015, approximately one year after the launch of Windows 8.1 Update.

The feature lineup is going to include quite a lot of new items, among which a modern Start menu and options to run Metro apps in their dedicated options right on the desktop. At the same time, sources are also pointing to multiple desktops, a PC version of Cortana, and some other improvements supposed to refine the experience you get on both desktops and tablets.

Windows 9 could be offered free of charge to users of previous Windows builds, including Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, but these plans could change a little bit before launch, depending on Microsoft’s strategy to boost early adoption.

And still, Windows 9 will have the very difficult mission of getting users off Windows 7, as this operating system has all the chances to become the new XP and thus be impossible to kill after reaching end of support.