Bangalore: Google’s Android operating system will become ubiquitous, overtaking Microsoft Windows in computational devices within the next four years.

According to data from Gartner, by the end of 2016, there will be 2.3 billion computers, tablets and Smartphones using Android software compared to 2.28 billion Windows devices.

Android, which reached market just four years back, has since then enthroned as world’s dominant Smartphone platform, ruling two third of the entire market. It also acquired the number two spot in the fastest growing tablet market. The wide acceptance of this free software gives Google, its controller, an upper hand in its main market-Search.

The data from Gartner underlines a massive shift in technology where handheld computational devices eat up the entire PC market. Recently, for the first time in 11 years, the PC market had witnessed a fall by eight percent, which many noted as the detonation of this shift.

The news would sound bad for Microsoft, which had ruled the PC market for decades, but failed to carry on its supremacy to the wireless device market. The company’s latest offering, Windows 8 OS is ready to hit the markets this week, whose fate will essentially determine the fate of PCs to an extent.