The AnswersThatWork Blog

Thursday, 23rd October 2008

More interesting statistics — Browser wars

Right.  I'm busy at the moment, no time.  However, just thought I'd spend 5 minutes getting more stats out of our web logs.  So here are a few statistics for you to discuss around a beer or glass of wine :

Internet Explorer's dominance of the browser market has reduced significantly from it's days of 83%, or even 72% at the beginning of the year.  It's now down to 61%.  Very very interesting, and some outright surprises :
 

 1 — Internet Explorer  

61.64%

 2 — Firefox  

26.87%

 3 — SeaMonkey  

5.21%

 4 — Netscape  

1.47%

 5 — Opera  

1.42%

 6 — Safari  

0.70%

Mozilla's SeaMonkey in 3rd place !!  I use SeaMonkey but, quite frankly, I definitely thought there was only one other of me on SeaMonkey, somewhere on the other side of the globe.  How wrong I was.

And what about Netscape in 4th place, the original original browser — all those users on old versions of AOL still using Netscape — amazing.  Apple's Safari is, well, nowhere, and as for Google's Chrome, it doesn't even register on the oscilloscope, never mind the Richter Scale....

Have a Guinness on me when you discuss these luminous statistics....

—— (TUT) SpaceMan

Saturday, 11th October 2008

Statistics force Microsoft to extend Windows XP's shelf life

The wonders of statistics again. Microsoft have taken a leaf out of our book, they've copied us, :-), they're finally looking at statistics too !

As mentioned in my blog of last week below, in October 2008 the sixth most used search phrase which brings Internet users to our website is  Windows 98 Boot CD  despite the fact that Windows XP is the most comprehensively adopted Windows Operating System of all time.

In 2008, 10 years after Windows 98 was first released but, more importantly, 7 years after the release of Windows XP there is a very sizeable number of users out there who still use Windows 98.  This is how hard it is to move users away from something that is not giving them any problems !  After all, Windows 98SE does pretty much 90% of what Windows XP can do — it is just not as reliable and, of course, the latest printers, game consoles, etc..., do not work with it.  Just last month we were stunned when a scientist from a well known Climate Change research institute asked us if we still had a version of  The Ultimate Troubleshooter  for Windows 98 as they have some PCs which run specialised software which can only run on Windows 98.  Go, Go, Go Windows 98 !

Windows XP is a fantastic operating system — it combines the good traditional attributes of Windows 98 which stats show so many users still use, with the ability to handle any modern software or features, including reliability and security.  So when Microsoft, in their [questionable] wisdom, released Windows Vista which, still after Service Pack 1, runs demonstrably slower than Windows XP, they had a problem.  They'd forgotten to look at their statistics !  With so many copies of Windows XP out there the one thing you absolutely must do when you release a new version of Windows, is make 9,000% certain that the IT techs, that the computer savvy friendly neighbour, will love the new operating system — you absolutely have to as IT Techs and the computer savvy friendly neighbours comprise 90% of the people who install, set up, and configure Windows on PCs, and who fix the problems afterwards.  The last thing you want to do in such a situation is alienate all those IT techs and computer savvy friendly neighbours with an operating system which takes so much of their valuable time and which irritates them to such levels they soon become the dangerous nutcase next door !  Compare this:  Windows XP, 90 minutes to configure in a very user friendly manner — Windows Vista, 3 hours + extreme irritation which starts right in the first minute of use with Vista Windows Explorer which has lost so many of the extremely useful Windows XP features.  No contest, of course :  "You want a new laptop ?  Vista ?  Naaah, it's rubbish, make sure you get an XP laptop".

Microsoft thought they could lure end-users with lovely gizmos while at the same time irritate and waste the time of the IT Techs and computer savvy friendly neighbours, and it didn't work.

So Friday last week, 3-October-2008, after looking at their stats and accepting what everyone in the IT industry has known for 18 months, and under considerable pressure from the DELLs, Hewlett-Packards, Lenovos (IBM), and Gateways of this world, they backtracked and extended Windows XP's shelf life by six month into March 2009.  So, you can now continue to buy XP PCs or buy Vista Laptops with the ability to choose XP when the laptop first boots.

You can read the full story on this ZDNet blog :  The top 5 reasons why Vista failed.

Well done Microsoft — good on you for recognizing the importance of unmistakable trends....

The wonders of statistics !

—— (TUT) SpaceMan
—— (This blog was written on a Windows XP PC....)

Saturday, 4th October 2008

The wonders of statistics : the rise of the Home Network

So, we all had so much fun with statistics last month, what with "Which is the most computer savvy state in the US",  I thought we'd continue on this month.

Having been taken totally by surprise by our findings on the most computerized states in the US, I started thinking of other challenging questions, like, for instance, what are the search terms that bring the most users to our website ?  This one was easy :  Background Tasks,  Background Programs,  Task List,  Ultimate Troubleshooter,  Space Shuttle Facts and Statistics  (ahead of Wikipedia, no less!).  You know, the normal run of things....

Oh yeah....???

Boy wasn't I in for another surprise.  And this one was more than surprise, it was total shock.

Coming in third place in terms of search phrases that bring people to our website was "Ultimate Troubleshooter", our  famous time and money saving PC Optimizer.   OK, I can understand this one, I can handle that — it's cool.

Coming in first place, a zillion years ahead of the next search phrase, much like California was way ahead of Texas in our most tech savvy state survey, was the first shock of the afternoon :  "Boot CD – Boot Disk".  Can you believe this !!!  Our well known but still relatively hidden  Boot Disks and Boot CDs page  is by far and away what gets the most people on the Internet to discover our website.  In 2008 !!!  In October 2008 when a completely different generation of users doesn't even know what a Boot Disk or Boot CD is.  Gee.  And it gets more staggering :  over 2 years after Microsoft discontinued all support for Windows 98 the 6th most frequent search phrase that brings users to our website is "Windows 98 Boot CD".  I was gob smacked, and yet, in one instant I also immediately understood why NetworkWorld wrote an article about our Boot Disks / Boot CDs page only last month — the stats back up the need for such an article in October 2008, pure and simple.

Now, the one that took my breath away, the one that blew my mind, the one that made me sit and think about the evolution of our world (deep deep stuff here) :  second place.  In absolutely clear second place we had this type of search terms :  "Belkin Default Router Password",  "D-Link Default Router Password",  "SMC Default Router Password",  "192.168.0.1 password",  "Belkin Default IP",  "Default Router IP",  "Motorola Router IP",  and it goes on.  All of these searches bring Internet users to this document on our website.

I was so shocked by this finding I had to go and show the web stats to the person who wrote the document.  Double the amount of shock I experienced, and then add unconfined joy and you'll get a picture of how she felt.  So many people out there Googling and Yahooing the net for the default password of their Internet router, or of their parents' Internet router, or of their friend's Internet router.  Staggering.

Statistics sometimes really have the power to make you sit up, to send you into the deepest thoughts, and, certainly, to completely wrong foot you.  We have hundreds of documents in our library, and I can name at least 20 which I would have believed to be far more useful, and far more searched for than our list of Default Router Passwords and Default Router IP addresses.  But I was wrong, completely wrong.  The rise of the [often self-installed] home network has given prominence to a classic problem :  users frantically searching the net for the default password of their Internet router (because they never made a note of it!) on the day they need to login to their Internet router in order to solve an Internet access problem, or a networking problem, with the help of the technician at the other end of the phone;  or sometimes it is the helpful techie neighbour who is the one frantically searching the net for the default password of the router because, in the techie neighbour's case, it is a life and death situation — his/her reputation as a "can-solve-all-computer-problems" person is on the line here !

Ahhhhh, how funny.  Endearing.  I love it.  I love the surprises these stats are springing up....

Have a good weekend.

—— (TUT) SpaceMan

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