I’ve been saying for ages now that Google’s Chrome OS would become Microsoft’s Windows top competitor. I had the timing wrong, but my prediction that “most of us will be moving to cloud-oriented operating systems” is finally coming true. According to IDC’s latest PC sales numbers, by 2020’s fourth quarter, Chromebooks were outselling Macs by two-to-one.
Specifically, in the fourth quarter of last year, Windows had 76.7% of the market (it’s in no danger of losing its top ranking this decade); macOS had 7.7%; and Chrome OS had 14.4%. For 2020 year-over-year compared to 2019, Windows lost 4.9 percentage points, from 85.4% to 80.5%; macOS was up 0.8 percentage points, from 6.7% to 7.5%; and Chrome OS established itself firmly in second place by jumping 4.4 points, from 6.4% to 10.8%.
