said by HarryH3:What would really be interesting is to see how many retail copies of Win 8 have been sold. I'd wager that the majority of the "increase" is that as people replace older systems they have no choice. The new system comes with Win 8.x and VERY few non-tech types would bother to change it after purchase.
Exactly. This will continue to change as people will get laptops and whatnot for Christmas. And you will also see that when Windows 10 comes out, no one will rush to the store to buy a retail box, it will just come gradually as people buy new computers again, etc, etc.
Businesses will skip Windows 8, most businesses will have deployed Windows 7 businesswide by now, and they will wait for Windows 10 before they will deploy a new OS to the work floor, especially since both 8 and 10 change Windows somewhat.