Pokki says that it 'knows' you want that Start menu in Windows 8

I suspect Microsoft may keep track of the number of people who use a Start button/menu replacement app in Windows 8, but it is not in the company's interest to say so -- both because a large number would reflect badly on the decision to remove the feature and because the company did a lot of, ah, "research" to determine the feature was not necessary. Oh, and the whole privacy thing as well.

Pokki, which is perhaps the market leader in this new genre of Start-menu-adding apps released a bit of information today: "1.5 million Pokki downloads on the new OS itself and users opening the Pokki Menu an average of 10 times a day".

That is great for them -- 1.5 million downloads of anything is a milestone type of number. Unless you are Windows or Office...or Adobe or Google.

Put it in perspective. Last week we reported that Microsoft has already sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses. That is an an average of 4.6 million licences per week since launch. We are now 2.5 months from launch, or 64 million licenses -- it's an estimate of course. That means Pokki has a total of less than one percent of the market.

It's a solid number. Good enough to keep a business afloat for sure. We should also consider that Pokki is not the only one in this game -- others like Classic Shell will have a bit of market share. So maybe we have three percent of users clamoring for that Start menu back.

It is hardly numbers compelling enough for Microsoft to rethink the decision. In fact, it points to a niche market. Companies like Pokki will do well in that market, but it hardly qualifies as the mainstream problem that a boisterous few seem to be making it out to be.