Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I Suck At Math

So I'm lousy at math, but I'm going to run some numbers here. Help me figure out what's wrong.

Over on Paul Thurrott's Supersite Blog on Paul Thurrott's Supersite For Windows, I wrote:
"...there are one billion people using Windows right now, compared to about 25 million on Mac OS X. Do the math."
So I took my own challenge and did the math.

1,000,000,000 Windows users. 88 million copies of Vista shipped (not actually in use, but never mind that). That amounts to 8.8% of Windows users actually using Vista, which first shipped nearly a year ago.

25,000,000 Mac users (again, my numbers). 2 Million copies of Leopard sold in the first 48 hours. That amounts to 8% of Mac users using the newest OS in less than a week.

This can't mean Leopard is more successful than Vista, can it?

No way. That's just not obvious.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

FPT, looks like your back to your old form, posting up a storm. Much appreciated!!

Anonymous said...

FPT, it's really easy to manipulate statistics to say just about anything. Looks like inadvertently did that. The reason that your math doesn't add up to reality is because you forgot to consider that the 8% that bought Leopard are ignorant Apple zealots that would run over their moms to buy 5 copies of anything that Apple wants to shove down their throats. Whereas the 8% that bought Vista are technophiles that prefer to run the most technically advanced OS that was rewritten from the ground up. So what counts for more? 8% Apple fanboi idiots that can't see that Leopard is just a minor upgrade that should be free, or 8% people that want a serious OS redesigned from scratch (Leopard is 100% style no substance, except for Spotlight which it copied from Microsoft and isn't even as good as Microsoft search which is complete hypocrisy from Apple, seriously). When you dig just a little bit deeper you realize that Microsoft is clearly more successful.

Not Paul said...

leroy: I do my best. I've been sick, you know. Read all about it on Paul Thurrott's Short Takes on Paul Thurrot's WinInformant

fake anonymous: Thanks, Mr. Enderle!

Anonymous said...

Glad to be of assistance. For you Paul, anything.

Comparing Apple to Windows is just like comparing regular music to Van Halen, it's very obvious that one is so much better than the other!

Anonymous said...

FPT, sad to see you're falling back into old habbits again. You really need to get on top of this blog again. Your lack of posting in the past two weeks certainly can't be for lack of material. RPT supplies ample material. I really wish you'd give your fans what they want...more FPT!

Anonymous said...

Hey Paul,

The new zunes are out and I was wondering when you were going to review them. I need a new audio player and I'm getting tired of iTune's "dBase III-like interface" and it's really clunky and complicated, like you have to go all the way through the step of actually clicking on a playlist to see the contents of that playlist. Sheesh! Come on Apple, we expect more! So is Microsoft's offering better this time?

Oh and I think you should also show a picture of the new zune side by side with a first gen nano to show how much larger the zune's screen is compared to that specific nano! Obviously. Can't wait for your review!