Win7 RC1 Market Shares Slide, Microsoft Optimistic

After a steady increase in market shares since the first week it was made available to the public, gains for Windows 7 release candidate (RC 1) have started to decrease at a consistent pace each day, according to reports.

This is dismal news for Microsoft, considering that RC 1 release date was just 2 weeks ago on May 4, 2009. The bottom line: if market shares are starting to decline now, while the product is supposed to be in high demand, the actual release of Windows 7's full version will not be very well received by the public either.

Consumer Interest Decreases

The reports don't suggest that people are refusing to download the product altogether, but rather, that less and less people are being drawn to the product on a day-to-day basis.

In its initial release week, the market share for Windows 7 rose from 0.27% to 0.36%. It then jumped even higher to 0.47% on Saturday, followed by a record high close of 0.50% on Sunday.

After a great weekend, the market shares began to decline. On Monday, Microsoft's shares lowered from 0.50% to 0.39%.

Microsoft's week-over-week gains also showed a decline. Monday's week-over-week increase of 44.4% was followed by a Tuesday 40.7%, Wednesday 25.8% and Thursday 18.1%. (Source: pcworld.com)

Declining Interest Cause for Concern

The decline in consumer interest when looking at the whole picture spells trouble for Microsoft. This is especially true considering that the company recently announced that it would not limit the number of downloads and would make Windows 7 RC available until at least the end of July.

The success of weekend downloads should come as no surprise, since this is the time that users install the program on their home computers. This, in turn, accounts for a higher percentage of computers in use overall.

Still, many are calling the 20-25% weekend gains modest, considering all of the hype surrounding the new operating system. In fact, the figures for Windows 7 are actually smaller than the increases on April 25-26, when users were still running the older version of Windows 7 beta released in January. (Source: computerworld.com)