No. You're comparing malware that's 'present' and malware that's 'infecting.' The 2.7% for Macs specifically says it's all malware that's present. That means it includes malware that hasn't infected the computer. The 0.4% for Windows 7 specifically says it's malware that's infected the computer.
Second, the studies appear to take into account two different sets of computers within the operating systems. For Windows 7, Microsoft looked at computers pulled from the full set of all Windows 7 computers (and found that the rate of infection was increasing at 30% per year). For OS X, Sophos (not Apple) looked at only the subset of those Macs running Sophos.
That's a curious subset, because installing Sophos disables part of the OS X that prevents certain malware from downloading. Sophos permits the download and then identifies the file as malware. The subset of OS X computers running Sophos should show a higher percentage of malware present than the set of all OS X computers. And it's malware present, not infections. Microsoft is noting infections in the entire set of Windows 7 computers.
The two studies compare apples and oranges - malware present versus malware infections, and from a select subset of computers running the operating system versus all computers running the operating system.
The studies don't provide the data to make a comparative analysis.
Exactly... and thank you Scoutmaster.
For-q-clinton insists on comparing all versions of Apple Mac OSX from OSX.1 through OSX.7.4—the last two of which, OSX.6 Snow Leopard and OSX.7 Lion, are incapable of being infected with the Trojans that are on his chart— patched and un-patched, with a SINGLE version of Microsoft Windows, Windows 7.
He IGNORES the fact that according to StatCounter's Global statistics (the most accurate known) as of March 2012, only 38.41% of computer users were utilizing Windows7 as on operating system... while 52.24% were still using either Windows XP (40.82%) or Windows Vista (11.42%)! 6.76% of the world's users had adopted OSX in one of it's seven versions... and 1.07% had adopted iOS! The rest of the world (1.52%) is using UNIX, Linux, or some other more obscure OS.
If we want to see just the statistics for the US:
Windows 7: 38.1%
Windows XP: 26.67%
Windows Vista: 16.63%
Mac OSX (various versions): 14.81%
Apple iOS: 2.05%
All others (UNIX, Linux, etc.): 1.83%
The combined Windows XP and Vista at 53.3% still exceeds still exceeds adoption of Windows7's 38.1% . . . and Microsoft's US Windows' market share has been dropping every quarter for years and the combined US installed base of Windows for XP, Vista, and 7, at the end of March was down to 81.4%! That may explain the flurry of FUD we have been subjected to for the last two weeks...
Apple just blew away the Wall Street ANAL-ysts projections this afternoon on every one of their predictions with the 1Q financial reports... the ones filled with FUD about low Mac Sales, low iPad sales, low iPhone sales, low revenues, low profits... and every one was far higher than the analysts were predicting. . . by millions of sales and BILLIONS of dollars! Apple stock is way up in after-hours trading after being forced down by unrelenting, false to fact FUD over the past two to three weeks intentionally comparing unlike quarters, presenting false data, and promulgating lies deliberately to manipulate the price of Apple stock! Where is the FTC investigation when BILLIONS of investor dollars were destroyed by these shenanigans by manipulators, FUD spreaders, and so-called analysts playing on the fears of small investors for the benefit of the big players?