I just checked the stats for Windows 8. Things don’t look good.

Assuming that Wikipedia is an accurate source of information (stop laughing when convenient), I pulled the latest Windows usage statistics as of March 2014. The Excel pie chart I made is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Various versions of Windows and how much they’re in use today.

As you can see, things don’t bode well for Windows 8. In fact, if you include both releases of Windows 8 (the original was well as version 8.1), you get only 12 percent of the Windows users out there using an operating system that’s nearly 2 years old.

Compare that with Windows XP, which is over 12 years old, and it retains a 31 percent of the Windows market share. That’s huge.

Obviously, Microsoft is aware of the dismal Windows 8 sales figures. How could they not be? Even if Wikipedia’s data is a complete fabrication generated by seething Linux fanatics, I know from the real world and from the emails I get that few people use Windows 8.

I don’t have a Windows 8 book, other than the one I published myself, Windows 8 Sucks. For my other books, I begged the publisher not to label any of them as the “Windows 8 Version.” That would have sunk sales quicker than the iceberg sank the Titanic.

And that thought brings me to Windows 9.

No one knows whether or not Microsoft will dub the next version of Windows as “nien” or not. They may call it Windows Sunflower for all I know.

And the rumor mills are quite vague on the topic; apparently Microsoft’s normal leaky channels are pretty tight when it comes to Windows 9.

What is generally known is this:

• Microsoft definitely doesn’t want to screw up Windows 9. If they do, they realize that Windows is dead as an operating system. Users will rally around XP or Win 7 and use them exclusively (imagine the black market) or they’ll migrate to Linux or OS X.

• No word on whether Microsoft will kill the Metro interface. I hope they do; a PC is not a tablet. Apple understands this fact.

• This is odd: The Wikipedia entry for Windows 9 is dreadfully bare. It’s almost like some major corporation is ensuring that nothing is written on that page.

• Apparently the release day is ventured to be April of 2015, which is less than a year away. My guess: It slips to the fall of 2015.

• Already they’re talking about Office 2015. Microsoft have recently tied the release of Office to that of Windows.

So there you have it: That’s about all I know regarding Windows 9. I suppose it’s wait-and-see for the time being. But do keep your ears peeled for a certain sucking sound.