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Figure 4-11 Q4-3 What Do Business Professionals Need to Know About Software? 163
Example of the Modern-Style
Interface
Source: © Access 2013, Microsoft
Corporation

Until recently, Mac OS was used primarily by graphic artists and workers in the arts community.
But for many reasons, Mac OS has made headway into the traditional Windows market. Accord-
ing to Net Applications, as of 2015, desktop operating system market share was divided between
versions of Windows (91.0 percent), OS X (5.8 percent), and Linux (1.5 percent). 22
Mac OS was designed originally to run the line of CPU processors from Motorola, but today a
Macintosh with an Intel processor is able to run both Windows and the Mac OS.
Unix is an operating system that was developed at Bell Labs in the 1970s. It has been the
workhorse of the scientific and engineering communities since then. Unix is seldom used in
business.
Linux is a version of Unix that was developed by the open source community. This com-
munity is a loosely coupled group of programmers who mostly volunteer their time to contribute
code to develop and maintain Linux. The open source community owns Linux, and there is no
fee to use it. Linux can run on client computers, but usually only when budget is of paramount
concern. By far, Linux is most popular as a server OS. According to DistroWatch.com, the top
five most popular versions of Linux as of 2015 were Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian GNU/Linux,
openSUSE, and Fedora. 23

Mobile Client Operating Systems
Figure 4-10 also lists the five principal mobile operating systems. Symbian is popular on phones
in Europe and the Far East, but less so in North America. BlackBerry OS was one of the most
successful early mobile operating systems and was used primarily by business users on BlackBerry
devices. It has lost market share to iOS, Android, and Windows 10.
iOS is the operating system used on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. When first released, it
broke new ground with its ease of use and compelling display, features that are now being copied
by the BlackBerry OS and Android. With the popularity of the iPhone and iPad, Apple has been
increasing its market share of iOS, and, according to Net Applications, it is used on 39 percent of
24
mobile devices. The current version of iOS is iOS 8.
Android is a mobile operating system licensed by Google. Android devices have a very loyal
following, especially among technical users. Net Applications estimates Android’s market share to
be nearly 52 percent.