Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system no longer rules the roost. Web analytics company StatCounter reported on Monday that Google Inc.’s Android is now the most popular operating system used on the Internet.

The data, which comes from StatCounter’s customers for the month of March, found that Android topped the worldwide OS Internet usage market share with 37.93 percent of all people accessing websites using the mobile OS versus 37.91 percent using Windows. All was not lost for Microsoft, though, because Windows still dominates the worldwide desktop OS market with an 84 percent share.

“This is a milestone in technology history and the end of an era,” StatCounter Chief Executive Officer Aodhan Cullen said in a statement. “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.”

StatCounter logically notes that the rise of smartphones and the decline of desktop PCs has been the primary driver of the change, particularly in the Asian market.

Unlike in the U.S. market, where Apple Inc.’s iPhone still competes with Android devices, Android has become completely dominant in Asia. In North America Windows maintained its lead at 39.5 percent in March versus iOS on 25.7 percent and Android on 21.2 percent. In Asia, however, Android dominates with a 52.2 percent share versus 29.2 percent for Windows.

“Windows won the desktop war but the battlefield moved on,” Cullen added. “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, AI, Voice or Continuum (a product that aims to replace a desktop and smartphone with a single Microsoft-powered phone).”

Image: pumpkincat210/Flickr