Fact Checking Paul Thurrott: Bad Info in the Echo Chamber

[Avatar Roku]

Paul Thurrott recently published an article condemning Windows 8 to failure status on the basis of an inside tip claiming that only 25 million people have upgraded for free to Windows 8.1. This false report of 25M upgrades has been republished and quoted on every major blog from Gizmodo to BGR without any thought or investigation.

 

Paul Thurrott erroneously reports:

"Windows 8 is tanking harder than Microsoft is comfortable discussing in public, and the latest release, Windows 8.1, which is a substantial and free upgrade with major improvements over the original release, is in use on less than 25 million PCs at the moment. That's a disaster"

 

 

A simple look at the data we have publicly available reveals that Paul Thurrott's numbers have no basis in reality. Netmarketshare.com is a widely used and published data tracker that reports OS usage every month. They report that about 3.6% of PCs worldwide are currently running Windows 8.1 during the first 3 months of availability. In order for Paul Thurrott's 25 million upgrades figure to be correct that would mean that there are fewer than 700 million PCs in use worldwide.

 

3.6% of 700M = 25.2M (Windows 8.1) Thurrott Claims

 

In reality most estimates place worldwide computer usage at over 1.6 billion users (more than double, possibly 3 times the amount of users as what Thurrott's number indicates). IDC and Gartner data indicates 315M PCs were sold last year alone (almost half 700M).

 

Computer Industry Almanac: Over 1.6B PC users

MS Says Over 1.3B Windows Users (July, 2012)

 

Important to remember that the Netmarketshare stat (3.6%) is of all computers including millions of Mac and Linux PCs worldwide. That means it is not 3.6% of 1.3 billion Windows users, but 3.6% of 1.6 billion computer users.

 

 

3.6% of 1.6B = 57.6M (Windows 8.1) Closer to reality

 

Netmarketshare.com puts the combined Windows 8.0/8.1 usage at about 10.5% of worldwide PC users:

 

10.5% of 1.6B = 168M (Windows 8/8.1 active users)

 

168M active users of Windows 8.x in the first year of availabilty is hardly the complete disaster that Thurrott describes in his "Threshold" article.

[neufuse Veteran]

Thurrott has always had off, odd, or misleading info... and he likes to pick on others that are off a tiny bit... he's a better one to ignore then anything

[+virtorio MVC]

Paul Thurrott has his uses, and a source of accurate information isn't one of them. 

[NightmarE D]

He is starting his "whine and moan" BS towards 8.1 so he can get someone at MS to give him access to internal builds. He wants to get his hands on update 1 for 8.1.

If there's any truth to a start menu possibly coming with it, he wants to be the first to show it and talk about how great it is while he tries to throw it in the faces of other "reviewers" and "journalists". Quoted because the guy is neither of those himself. He will then find a way to keep attacking it after a little while to try getting his hands on builds of Windows 9.

I'm hoping that once the MS restructuring and new CEO change is done someone at MS will put an end to his childish BS. It got old years ago. Whoever his MS source(s) are (if they even exist) need to stop feeding the troll.

It was funny when he tried getting 8.1 before everyone else and was only supplied with screenshots. Screenshots that he tried to pass of as his until others pointed out that none of them showed him signed into an account. If they had come off his system, he would have shown that to throw it in peoples faces. Now that was funny. I can imagine him throwing a hissy fit as he opened the e-mail expecting a possible download link and only got screenshots lmao.

[vcfan]

Microsoft must really be not giving him anything. he's having a meltdown

 

Planning for a Post-PC World

http://windowsitpro.com/mobile/planning-post-pc-world

[DeadEndAccount]

Why is this surprising? anyone remember way back when Pau suddenly 'hated Windows' and 'loved Apple' way back in Windows Vista days then when Windows 7 came out it was the second coming of JC. Windows 8 was released and now he is back to the usual temper tantrum so I'm not surprised that he is posting what he is posting these days - its part of the usual song and dance he follows with little in the way of real analysis or deep diving into the details.

 

Microsoft must really be not giving him anything. he's having a meltdown
 
Planning for a Post-PC World

http://windowsitpro.com/mobile/planning-post-pc-world

 

Just reading through that link and this jumped out at me:

 

In-house, there are businesses such as Office that are already bigger than Windows.

 

Which is why I would argue that the operating system is less and less important; if you're Microsoft why should you care if the operating system is downplayed in favour of your middleware and services? if a person is buying your product or using your service on a non-Windows platform then how is that loss for ones organisation? It is the same reason why the MacBU keeps hanging around - because it is better to make a sale to a person running a non-Microsoft platform than making no sale at all. Personally I think we're at the stage that eventually you'll get a CEO whose focus will be profits rather than market dominance at all costs and to be completely honest Microsoft is in a great position with their office and server middleware stack that I think at some point they'll start giving away their operating system for the phone and client because in terms of profits the focus will be on the server and being a backend provider in much the same way that IBM is now producing the heavy lifting products behind all the consumer facing products we see today.

[vcfan]

Which is why I would argue that the operating system is less and less important; if you're Microsoft why should you care if the operating system is downplayed in favour of your middleware and services? if a person is buying your product or using your service on a non-Windows platform then how is that loss for ones organisation? It is the same reason why the MacBU keeps hanging around - because it is better to make a sale to a person running a non-Microsoft platform than making no sale at all. Personally I think we're at the stage that eventually you'll get a CEO whose focus will be profits rather than market dominance at all costs and to be completely honest Microsoft is in a great position with their office and server middleware stack that I think at some point they'll start giving away their operating system for the phone and client because in terms of profits the focus will be on the server and being a backend provider in much the same way that IBM is now producing the heavy lifting products behind all the consumer facing products we see today.

 

that's why Microsoft is getting in the hardware business,and the reason for the existence of metro/win8. selling windows just doesn't cut it anymore. selling hardware is a much more lucrative venture.

[DeadEndAccount]

that's why Microsoft is getting in the hardware business,and the reason for the existence of metro/win8. selling windows just doesn't cut it anymore. selling hardware is a much more lucrative venture.

 

True, and you can also demand a premium for a product that performs well and integrated heavily into Microsoft's online services as well. It'll be interesting though to see where Windows 8.x ends up considering that 64bit ARM processors are just making their way into the mainstream and whether the rumour of 'threshold' aka Windows 9 with windowed metro applications (I have a feeling that what is being talked about is traditional desktop applications that are based on WinRT rather than Win32) whether we'll see ARM laptops in greater numbers.

[Stoffel]

What I get from reading his articles is that he still likes and uses Windows 8.1. He's just admitting that the general public isn't really adopting to Win 8.1 the way MS would have hoped.

 

Maybe i'm just to optimistic for this forum?

[Lord Method Man]

What I get from reading his articles is that he still likes and uses Windows 8.1. He's just admitting that the general public isn't really adopting to Win 8.1 the way MS would have hoped.

 

 

Yes. Folks here are just hopelessly in denial and will attack any source that isn't unwaveringly positive about Windows 8.

[123456789A]

Paul Thurrott has his uses, and a source of accurate information isn't one of them. 

 

Paul Thurrott and John C. Dvorak should fact check each other. Their combined inaccuracies would be amazing to read.

[+virtorio MVC]

Paul Thurrott and John C. Dvorak should fact check each other. Their combined inaccuracies would be amazing to read.

Drive makers haven't yet created enough disk storage to store all the BS they'd produce.

[Dot Matrix]

This thread is full of win. (y)

[LaP]

Paul Thurrott has his uses,

I must admit he is funny ... like all fanboys and paid advocates.

[NightmarE D]

Yes. Folks here are just hopelessly in denial and will attack any source that isn't unwaveringly positive about Windows 8.

 

No. Folks here having been pointing out Paul's BS for years now. Has nothing to do with Windows 8 fans. The issue is with his constant lying.

 

The OP proves that he pulls numbers out of his butt. That's just one area he lies about.

[Chris123NT]

I've been saying for years that Paul is full of ###### but enough people keep sucking up the crap he posts, and a few people that I NEVER expected to be attached to his rear are.  It's sad really.

[Dick Montage]

He used to be seen as the source to trust on Windows rumours, but as time has progressed people have seen him for what he is.

[DeadEndAccount]

Paul Thurrott and John C. Dvorak should fact check each other. Their combined inaccuracies would be amazing to read.

 

Do you remember the Dvorak claim that Apple was going to kill of Mac OS and replace it with a customised version of Windows NT? ( link ) People pay him to spout such utter crap?

[123456789A]

Do you remember the Dvorak claim that Apple was going to kill of Mac OS and replace it with a customised version of Windows NT? ( link ) People pay him to spout such utter crap?

 

Neowin could pay me to do a John C. Qwerty column here.

[LimeMaster]

Paul has always been biased and likes to promote Microsoft's products because that's what he is paid to do. I thought everyone knew this. :o

[rfirth]

Paul has always been biased and likes to promote Microsoft's products because that's what he is paid to do. I thought everyone knew this. :o

 

Everyone knows that. But not everyone knows about his temper tantrums where he attacks Microsoft when he doesn't get early access to what he wants.

[NightmarE D]

If he's anything like he was around the time he wanted to boycott IE 7 because he didn't have beta access, he will actually harass you over the internet for calling him out on stuff that he does. He's done it to me. Under a different name, but it was pretty freaking obvious it was him when he was the only person I had an issue with at the time and started right after I called him out on some BS on his site with proof of my claims. I was banned, then harassed on any site I used that same nickname on lol. It was beyond obvious.

[Zlain]

Whilst I don't deny Thurrott isn't the greatest source, your analysis is highly misleading. You seem to be getting confused between users and PC's. There may well be 700 million PC's which so happen to be used by 1.6 billion users (or accounts if you prefer).

 

Additionally, PC's, that could mean anything these days. Its easy to find bull**** in numbers if you look hard enough, but to discredit someone based on these statistics just doesn't have the same effect.

[trooper11]

I must admit he is funny ... like all fanboys and paid advocates.

The weird thing is, if you read a lot of his stuff, he comes off as the oddest fanboy ever.

He could be called a self-hating fanboy. He spends time trashing MS and praising it, in a rollercoaster of moods.

[Walrush]

The weird thing is, if you read a lot of his stuff, he comes off as the oddest fanboy ever.

He could be called a self-hating fanboy. He spends time trashing MS and praising it, in a rollercoaster of moods.

 

So he can't win? If he hates MS stuff it's bad, if he praises it it's..still bad. 

 

Seems like a lot of petty and vindictive people in here posting a lot of their own BS. Honestly people, grow up.