Research film Gartner has released their latest forecast for computer operating systems for the next few years and Google dominates all comers with a full 26% increase over 2013's numbers. Expected to hit a whopping 1.1 billion devices combined between phones and tablets, Android completely blows away the #2 Microsoft's Windows with 360 million and Apple's combined iOS/OSX numbers of 344 million. In 2015 Android will hit an astonished 1.25 billion devices sold. Not only that but Android will hit a total of 2 billion devices installed...that's over 1/4 of the world's population...in early 2015. "There is no doubt that there is a volume versus value equation, with Android users also purchasing lower-cost devices compared to Apple users," Gartner analyst Annette Zimmerman said in a statement. "Android holds the largest number of installed-base devices, with 1.9 billion in use in 2014, compared with 682 million iOS/Mac OS installed-base devices."
Overall phone still dominate tablets with 1.9 billion phones expected to be shipped in 2014 compared to 263 million tablets (a 47% increase year over year). Still...with so many Android devices out there is it any wonder that developers have started to turn from iOS to Android as their development target of choice? One surprising
result from this data is how well Windows seems to be holding up despite the onslaught of Android and iOS with the venerable desktop OS still eeking out a 2nd place finish. With Android starting to introduce tablet/laptop replacement devices and even the first desktops can be long before Android dominates the desktop as well? Stay tuned...
WSJ
