Linux marketshare for September 2020 fell dramatically on that of August, according to NetMarketShare who’ve just published their latest tracking stats.
September saw the third successive month of contraction for Linux’s share of desktop operating since posting huge leaps back in the spring.
Linux fell from 2.69 percent in August 2020 to 1.47 percent in September. The gains, once again, go to macOS (up from 9.55% to 9.72%) and Windows 10 (up from 86.98% to 88.32%).
This represents a rather substantial drop. Does it lend credence to the idea that “when people were working from from home they used Linux more” explanation? Perhaps.
Interestingly when we dial in closer the rise and fall is (seemingly) attributable to Ubuntu specifically:
But, on the flip, the amount of marketshare Linux has remains comparatively small. Minor fluctuations in Linux marketshare (much less distro marketshare with that slither) do tend to paint much bigger pictures.
So what does it all mean?
It means … this post will be the last marketshare news report for a while. It’s not that these stats aren’t interesting, or that trends don’t appear in them …It’s just there’s not an awful lot to say other “they went up again” or “they went down again”. They’re just too vague to support any nuanced discussion.
And before you think it, no: that’s not just me only want to believ the good stats (and poo-poo the bad ones).
The dial hasn’t really budged for Linux over on StatCounter for the same period. While this company do generally report a lower overall Linux marketshare month to month it is perhaps a more accurate one — certainly less prone to whims in work habits!
There are also far fewer analytics companies out there divulging this kinda of data for free. Back in the early days we’d crunch the numbers from a raft of them to get an average stat. Only having two real sources to pull numbers from make that …pointless.