Chrome OS and Windows RT Only Nibbling at Market Share Currently

Since their respective launches, it's been oft-speculated that neither Chrome OS or Windows RT have fared too well in the market, and with an updated report from NetMarketShare, we can now add some substance to that.

Net Applications, which monitors a number of large websites for usage statistics and then publishes the results through NetMarketShare, began monitoring for both of the aforementioned OSes just a week ago. At the conclusion of that week, it was found that Chrome OS usage was about 2/100th of 1%, or 0.0002% - too low to even register among the rest of the results. Given the fact that the first Chromebook was released about two years ago, this small usage share is nothing short of striking.

Windows RT results haven't fared that well either, sitting at 0.02%. Also in the charts is "Windows 8 Touch", which we assume are the Surface Pros, which settle in at 0.12%. Both RT and Chrome OS have scored too low to place in the pie chart above.

These figures don't bode too well for either Google or Microsoft, although arguably, it's Google that should be the most concerned. In recent months, Microsoft hasn't seemed to push Windows RT too hard, leading me to believe that its future is very questionable. But on the Chrome side, Google would really like to make its platform successful; for Microsoft, even if Windows RT fails, it still has its many other mobile Windows devices (notebooks, Ultrabooks, et cetera) out there that sell well.

Microsoft's problem is a little different than Google's, as many are finding the limitations imposed by an ARM-based processor under Windows to be a major roadblock. For Google, it simply needs a greater market presence, because as we've found before, the platform does have potential.