NPD: 2008 was a bad year for operating systems

Market research company NPD released its non-game software sales figures for 2008, which showed a nearly 10% overall decline, with operating systems taking the greatest hit, selling 40% less than the previous year.

While the data does not take enterprise software deployments into account, the numbers are quite dramatic when considering the lifespan of the operating systems in the consumer market. Though due consideration can be given to the various Linux operating systems, any changes within their 1% collective market share would have only a minimal effect on the health of the OS market overall.

When speaking of consumer operating systems, we speak of Windows which holds an 89% share of the market, and Mac OS which has 10%. Between these two in 2008, we speak of Windows Vista, which was released in November 2006, and OS X.5 (a.k.a., Leopard) which was released in October 2007.

In June 2008, Windows XP's Direct OEM and Retail license availability came to an end. Although not an abrupt ending by any means, the more popular half of the one-time most popular operating system was removed from retail halfway through the year. Without actually having any numbers at your fingertips, doesn't it sound like the removal of XP equated to the immediate removal of 40% of the OS market?

This 40% decline in revenue was met with a 13% decline in unit volume, to a total of 38 million units, and a 4% increase in average selling price (ASP).

Of all the software categories designated by NPD, the only one not to see negative growth was business software, which managed a 1% improvement, led by Microsoft Office Home and Student, thanks to a $20 drop in price against the previous year.