14 DAY TRIAL // China is one of the countries where local authorities are trying to push users to Linux distributions, even though it's pretty clear that Windows has been, is, and will remain the dominant operating system.
While the local authorities recently decided to ban Windows 8 on government computers and started work on a locally-developed version of Linux, figures provided by StatCounter for the month of May 2014 show that Microsoft's operating system is leading the charts and things are very unlikely to change in the coming months.
At this point, Windows 7 gets the gold medal, as it's running on 49.62 percent of the desktop computers in China, while Windows XP is the runner-up with 41.01 percent.
Windows 8 is third, but still trailing way behind with 3.52 percent. Windows 8.1 is next with 2.08 percent.
Despite the Chinese authorities' intention to push users towards the freeware Linux-based alternatives, the open source operating system is not even an option for local users and is completely missing from the charts.
In the meantime, Microsoft is still talking with the Chinese authorities in order to make Windows 8 at least a product that's being considered for government PCs, as Redmond tries not only to fight piracy in the country, but also to boost the adoption of its operating system using one of the largest markets worldwide.