Bangalore: Windows XP, which was introduced 10 years ago still dominates the Operating System in PC’s, despite the launch of its many contenders and siblings.

Net Applications, a web analytics firm in its final monthly report for 2011, reported on the PC internet market shares of various versions of Microsoft Windows and the Apple’s Mac OS X. According to the report, Windows XP is still the single most present Operating System with a global web share of 46.5 percent.

Windows XP which is introduced in August 2001 was Microsoft’s first consumer oriented OS to be built on Windows NT Kernel. The popularity of XP came with a significantly redesigned Graphical User Interface. It was also the first version of windows that used product activation to fight illegal copying.

As of December 2011, Windows XP market share is at 46.52 percent after having peaked at 76.1 percent in January 2007.

The Mac OS X 10.6 which was launched by Apple in Aug 2009 has a 3.1 market share compared to 2 percent of Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). Windows Vista and the “others” experienced a drop in market share this year.

 The report clearly shows the persistence of ageing OS’s. But the new OS’s are gaining the market share as Mac Lions web presence went from 0 to 2 percent in just two months. Also Windows 7 witnessed a 71 percent increase over the year as its presence went from 21.7 to 37 percent.

It’s for us to see whether the dominance of Windows XP end as Microsoft is launching Windows 8, a new, improved version of its windows 7 OS, this year.