https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/north-america/#monthly-200901-202607
Cloudflare stats also seem to support peaks of 15% usage but around 9-10% on average. In the United States alone, the market share for Linux is nearly 12% now for the whole month and Cloudflare stats suggest peaks of up to 25% (!) Linux desktop usage on certain days and times.
The trendline suggests this is just the start. When will companies realize they cannot ignore Linux anymore?
I’ve been saying this since the release of WSL, but Microsoft has everything to gain from switching to the Linux kernel. Even back then senior devs were being laid off, and quality kept backsliding.
Fiscally, why would they want to maintain a whole ass kernel and OS layer when they could probably get away with some sort of custom Atomic Fedora distro?
It’s only exacerbated by AI slop now. Their NT team will continue to shrink, and they’ll be left with no other options.
They also gave up really quick on mandating Windows Server on Azure and are now mightily happy to offer the latest and greatest Linux versions. I think you are onto something there: if it weren’t for compatibility, it would be so much cheaper for Microsoft to just use the Linux kernel.