While Microsoft’s Windows 7 has been making tech news, Apple’s Mac OS X has moved up the market-share ladder. Apple’s operating system continued climbing for the third consecutive month, closing in on 10 percent of the operating-system market, according to Net Applications. Apple now claims 9.9 percent of the market.

At the same time, Microsoft’s Windows operating system saw three consecutive months of decline. As of January, Microsoft Windows had 88.3 percent of the market, a .42 percent drop from December and a 2.2 percent decline in the last 90 days.

That’s the largest slump in a three-month period in the four years Net Applications has been gathering operating-system data — and it doubles the previous record, set from December 2006 to February 2007. During that 2006-2007 period, Windows fell 1.1 percent. Windows XP caused most of the loss.

Usage Varies By Day

After a dismal showing with Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft has much riding on the launch of Windows 7. Microsoft launched a beta version of Windows 7 in mid-January and it now has one-tenth of one percent of the operating-system market, according to Net Applications.

Net Applications gathers its data on operating-system usage from its Web analytics program.

“Similar to Windows Vista, Windows 7 usage share is showing a pattern of being much higher on weekends than on weekdays,” the company said in a note on its Web site. “Beta users are taking the time and effort to install it on their home computers, since corporations generally prohibit beta operating systems to be used in production environments.”

Microsoft has said it will put out a release candidate of Windows 7 as its next step — there will be no second beta version — but the company has not offered a release date.

According to Microsoft, Windows 7 was built around consumer feedback. Some of the new features include a taskbar at the bottom of the screen that lets users switch between open applications. In Windows 7, users can set the order in which the icons appear. A Jump List feature aims to make it easy to find recent files. Right-clicking on a Word icon, for example, will show the most recent Word documents.

Beyond the iPod Halo Effect

Apple’s operating system isn’t coming close to eclipsing Microsoft Windows, just as Mozilla’s Firefox browser isn’t close to beating Internet Explorer. But Apple’s influence on the PC market is becoming increasingly visible.

According to Stephen Baker, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group, that influence isn’t just because of the Apple iPod‘s popularity. Baker said the iPod halo effect is played out, and iMac and MacBook sales are growing on their own merits.

“Apple has been selling a lot of PCs over the past few years. I don’t know that there’s a milestone or a number that people ought to hang their hat on. It’s a continuing process right now,” Baker said. “Mac has been outperforming the rest of the PC industry in the consumer segment, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

Via Yahoo