NetMarketShare’s desktop Operating System Market Share metrics for January 2012 show the Mac OS gaining a minuscule three tenths of a point on the month, with Windows falling back slightly. In the Mobile/Tablet category, the iOS was still well out in first place, and recovering some of the ground it gave up in December.

NetMarketShare’s desktop Operating System Market Share metrics for October 2011 show the Mac OS continuing its advance significantly by nearly a half point, Linux up a smidge as well, and Windows off by a little more than half a point, most of which went to Apple’s OS. The NetMarketShare researchers note that Mac usage share generally rises in late summer and fall, this year rising another half-point plus in October to reach 6.45% of worldwide desktop usage.

NetMarketShare’s desktop operating system market share metrics for September 2011 show the Mac OS up significantly by more than a third of a point, Linux up a smidge as well, and Windows off by roughly a third of a point, most of which went to Apple’s OS. In the Mobile/Tablet category, iOS gained another point and a half of share, JavaME was still in second-place but down more than two points, and Android gained just over a quarter point.

For August, 2011, NetMarketShare has changed the way it calculates Operating System Market Share metrics, now separating Desktop and Mobile/Tablet OSs into two discrete categories. This change has of course altered the proverbial landscape considerably, with one consequence being that share percentages for the three significant Desktop OS players have all bumped up significantly from July’s figures.

Parallels announced this evening that Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac will be available at retail outlets and online on Tuesday, September 6th, with upgrades for current users available today. The updated version will offer more than 90 new and enhanced features, including OS X Lion integration, performance boosts, and a powerful new Parallels Mobile app and My Parallels services for Apple’s iDevices.

More evidence that desktop Linux is spinning its wheels—alas, stuck at less than one percent OS market share for the past several months according to Hitslink metrics—is to be found in Microsoft’s latest Annual Report to the United States Securities And Exchange Commission, in which Linux is no longer cited as a competitor to the Windows operating system.

July 2011′s NetMarketShare Operating System Market Share metrics for the significant players show Windows’ share slipping nearly seven-tenths of a percentage point, continuing its slow downward spiral, albeit still representing the vast majority of OS installs. The Mac OS gained nearly half a point on the month.

Windows slipped almost half a point, continuing a slow downward trend, but it still represents an overwhelming majority of OS installs. The Mac OS gained slightly on the month. Apple’s iOS now enjoys 2.63 percent of the overall OS market, and desktop Linux gained slightly to a .95 share while Android trails at .72 percent, which is .04 less than its May showing.

Here’s our monthly summary of NetMarketShare’s Operating System Total Market Share rundown of the significant players for May 2011, tracking changes over the past month. In summary, Windows slipped a bit more this month but still accounts for nealy 90% of OS installs. The Mac OS also fell back a bit, while the main story is across-the-board gains for mobile systems.

Another exciting project for the jailbroken iDevice community, entitled Project iX, is currently in development. The direct sister project of the iDroid Project—which has ported the Android operating system over to iDevices up to the iPhone 3G and is currently expanding to newer iDevice models—is aiming to port an X11-based GNU/Linux distribution over to iDevices, adding even more possibilities when it comes to running alternative operating systems.