Android is now the Internet’s most used operating system as new research found it had garnered .02 percent more use than Windows, for the first time ever.
Statcounter, an independent web analytics company, found that Google’s Android passed Windows in March with 37.93 percent in worldwide OS Internet usage market share, compared to Windows’ 37.91 percent.
This comes after Microsoft led the market for more than three decades.
Apple’s iOS came in third with 13.09 percent, while OS X and Linux finished in the top five of the list with 5.17 percent and 0.75 percent, according to TechSpot.
“This is a milestone in technology history and the end of an era,” said Aodhan Cullen, the CEO of Statcounter. “It marks the end of Microsoft’s leadership worldwide of the OS market which it has held since the 1980s. It also represents a major breakthrough for Android which held just 2.4 percent of global Internet usage share only five years ago.”
According to Tech Crunch, Statcounter takes a close look at more than two million websites that receive more than 15 billion views on a monthly basis, which speaks volumes to the company’s credibility.
The new findings have a lot to do with the lack of success of Windows’ phone business.
According to reports, Windows’ phone platform has seen a 49 percent decline in revenue, and it’s being blamed on a “strategy change announced in July 1015.”
This “end of an era” is evidence that mobile platforms now have the upper hand over desktops and laptops when it comes to the way people surf the web nowadays.
Windows might have been surpassed by Android, but the operating system still dominates the market when it comes to PCs and laptops, according to Statcounter.
“Windows won the desktop war but the battlefield moved on,” Cullen said. “It will be difficult for Microsoft to make inroads in mobile but the next paradigm shift might give it the opportunity to regain dominance. That could be in Augmented Reality, Al, Voice or Continuum (a product that aims to replace a desktop and smartphone with a single Microsoft powered phone).”