I have a feeling the decline will slow once vista is improved further.

 Instead of making some vague claim, why don't you give some examples of things in Linux distros that really are ten years in advance of Windows?

Maybe if Vista wasnt such a fail

ssj is right in this case.  It is usually smaller companies or smaller outfits that are able to make innovations.  They are more agile and have very little compatibility issues to worry about.  Compatibility and legacy code are very very large problems that M$ has to deal with.   But then compatibility issues also keep them in business, so it is a double edged sword.  They have the business sector pretty much locked in, but then the consumer end is taking a whacking.

Meh ssj likes 2 throw around "facts"

ssj since when did you start trolling again?

Dell and several other large manufactures did sell Linux on the certain PCs at the turn of the century. However, they soon found out that Linux was not in great demand at that time. Fast forward to today and Dell, HP and other large computer manufactures have all been selling Linux successfully for several years now.

Good news for Apple, but M$ still has a huge lead.
Also, something people seem to be forgetting that this has not really been a 15 year race. For about 10 of those years Apple doing so badly that you could barely count them as competitors. The competition has only really been "heating up" for the last few years when the iPod made people actually notice Apple.

Jagged has the right idea here.

The main issue that Windows has with their OS is everything is backwards-compatible. So each new system has to have so much legacy code in each subsequent OS that it doesn't allow for forward-thinking innovations as much as some want. Other systems such as Linux don't have to worry about it, since they don't really care if their system is compatible with Wordpad 1997 or not.

It'd be like the next Nintendo Wii having the hardware to accept every single game ever made by any previous Nintendo gaming device - Game & Watch, NES, SNES, VirtuaBoy, N64, iQue, GameCube, Wii, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, and DS all on the same system - it wouldn't be as cheap, or innovative as you'd want the device to be.

They probably used Sales on each copy of OS sold to estimate the market share, but sales data are very skrewed favoring Mac OS. We need to realize there are millions of people out there custome built system using their old copy windows(legit or pirate) or getting their system pre-installed wth window(most likely pirate version) that these data dont get to caculated into market share. I remember an atricle I read not long ago Apple PC account less than 3% market share and if you do a 1:1 ratio of software to hardware sold then then 8% software data dont seem right. Another poin to remember is each apple pc come with a legit copy of Mac OS and you cant custom built one.