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Linux Market: Absolutes / Percentages / Trends 233

Posted by timothy from the any-two-points-fit-a-curve dept.
vincecate writes "In their 10-K filing, Microsoft says that Linux server units rose slightly faster on an absolute basis than Windows server units in fiscal 2004. To project the trends it is helpful to look at the percentages. Some Gartner Inc. statistics report Linux server unit shipments are up 61% giving it 9.5% of the overall market share. Windows has a much larger base, so it can get the same absolute unit growth with a much lower percentage. Gartner expects Linux to continue growing faster and have more than 1/2 of the new server shipment market by the end of 2008."
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Linux Market: Absolutes / Percentages / Trends

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  • Wow! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    All that money that SCO will be making!
  • For all the talk of Linux, only 230,074 machines, or about 14.7 percent of shipments, were servers
    running Linux. However, all of those Linux machines added up to a smidgen more than $1 billion
    in sales for the quarter.Check more details here [midrangeserver.com]

    • Re:sales for the quarter crosses $1 billion ! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by po8 ( 187055 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:39AM (#10175711)

      Keep in mind that the servers shipped running Linux may be a miniscule fraction of the total Linux servers deployed or being deployed at this point. Presumably one reason for the relative growth of Linux preloads vs Windows preloads will be more competitive prices of Linux preloads and a decline in Windows unloads.

      (BTW, when you directly quote an article, it is a good idea to use quotation marks. Otherwise people might think the text was yours.)

      • Re:sales for the quarter crosses $1 billion ! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by dubious9 ( 580994 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:30AM (#10175922) Journal
        Excelent point. I know that all of my linux boxes are installed after the server is already rackmounted. That means that there was probably windows already on it, or that client need different functionality (you mean I can put my web and mail on one server and use the windows machine that were doing that to augment the SQL cluster? Cool!), or whatever.

        I'm pretty sure that none of the linux boxes that I admin will get counted in any linux survey. Count support contracts from Redhat et al? Nope, I'm the support. I'd wager that any broad count of linux deployment is under by at least 50% and probably 75%.
        • Servers are not desktops. If you buy a server with Windows if you do not want to install Windows but Linux, *BSD, whatever you either have too much money or you are stupid. Almost all relevant vendors ship today servers at least without an operating system, some even with a Linux distro of (mostly limited) choice installed.

      • definitely overlooked (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Skeezix ( 14602 )
        This is something that the articles and reports often fail to mention. I know at our company every Linux server we have (and we have quite a few) is running a downloaded distribution. The original server shipped with either no OS or with Windows.
    • As others have said, the article refers to servers SHIPPED with Linux. In our case, we don't bother with pre-installs, because most use a different distribution than we have standardized upon, and I've never seen one that has the "right collection" of packages we need. It's easier for us to order a dozen identical machines, do one install, and image the hard drive to the others... changing the IPs along the way.

  • lies, damn lies and... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gregski ( 765387 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:21AM (#10175652)
    i'm not really sure how important linux server shipment numbers are. Many copies will be installed on multiple machines or just downloaded for free.

    however it does show continual growth as a general indicater that linux is well accepted in the industry. i know my recent workplace was mostly windows on the desktop but had quite a few linux servers.

    • Re:lies, damn lies and... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:35AM (#10175702) Homepage
      The corporate world isn't geeks and freaks installing linux. You buy a whole system that includes hardware, software, and support. When the machine breaks, you don't start playing with .conf files and testing it, you call the manufacturer and they fix it, or tell you how. You wank with the machine, and it'll void your warranty.

      I know, it's a long way from downloading ISO's from bittorrent. But the business world does things differently (surprise).

      • Re:lies, damn lies and... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "But the business world does things differently (surprise). "

        No it isn't when you are the one providing the support for the box, then you prefer to install something which is low on maintenance and by this good for profit. As long as all desired functionality is preserved most people who already have taken the step to hire IT muscle don't bother what they run just that it runs.
        Ofcourse there is preference for a brand but thats way beaten by good price over performance/functionality.

        Heck when was the last

      • Re:lies, damn lies and... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:01AM (#10175777) Homepage Journal
        depends on which part of the corporate world. The last company I worked for downloaded the ISO or did ftp installs of BSD (depending on the application). The current company I work for has serveers where they download the ISO but bought the service. So, either way they didn't buy machines with linux on it from the get go. And neither company is small or meduim in size.

      • Re:lies, damn lies and... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by sydb ( 176695 )
        Be fair, some of it IS downloaded ISOs. I know, because I have done it.

        It all dependes on organisational culture and the attitude of local management.

      • Re:lies, damn lies and... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by avdp ( 22065 ) * on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:44AM (#10175976)
        Really? Because I work for a fortune 500 (not a software company) and we do just that: download the ISO and install it on whatever the HP servers come preloaded with. We have in-house experts in all operating systems we use, and to my knowledge never rely on the vendor for anything but hardware failures (and even then, we usually have the spares on hand, and do the replacement ourselves). We will buy support contracts for things like Oracle databases, but even there, we have an excellent DBA staff which is pretty self reliant.

        I think you're attempting to project the way your company works to the rest of the corporate world... Not every company hires phone operators instead of IT staff.

      • That's bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

        by njdj ( 458173 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @09:08AM (#10176130)
        The corporate world isn't geeks and freaks installing linux. You buy a whole system that includes hardware, software, and support. When the machine breaks, you don't start playing with .conf files and testing it, you call the manufacturer and they fix it

        This is simply not true. I've spent the last 8 years working for big multinational banks. They all have internal support organizations. When something breaks, you call the tech support hotline, which is usually to the bank's internal support group. In a few banks, this function is contracted out to a company like EDS, whose people would be on-site. Nobody ever calls the manufacturer or the software publisher. I've watched the tech support guys fix problems, and they don't call the manufacturer or software publisher either, they fix the problem themselves (which might sometimes involve replacing the machine or reinstalling the software).

      • Whether they're Windows geeks or linux geeks, it's still up to them to maintain a machine (at least in the corporate world where I live). Under your view, HP/Dell/Whatever would be in charge of applying service packs and updates. That ain't gonna happen, that's for sure.

        Nor would vendors be the ones to install updates to any Linux system my company purchased (you do realize that HP/Dell/Whatever now sell servers with Linux preinstalled, don't you?).

      • Yeah, right. Linux machines, and even Windows machines, get a tweaked and customized image in most situations. I can't think of any machines at my business that don't get wiped and reimaged when we get the hardware. That goes for servers as well.
      • The corporate world isn't geeks and freaks installing linux. You buy a whole system that includes hardware, software, and support. When the machine breaks, you don't start playing with .conf files and testing it, you call the manufacturer and they fix it, or tell you how. You wank with the machine, and it'll void your warranty.

        I know, it's a long way from downloading ISO's from bittorrent. But the business world does things differently (surprise).

        Oh crap. We've been downloading ISO's from bittorrent, ins
      • However the "Business World" you refer too usually consists of very large, large and maybe a few medium sized companies.

        The vast majority of the economy is made up of smaller businesses that for the most part are ignored by these surveys. Many of these businesses hire a geek to support and install their server stuff, and their server stuff is often whatever the geek throws together (maybe new hardware if there is a budget for that). These machines either started their lives as windows or started their live
      • huh???

        so far EVERY linux server here has been from a single mandrake ISO set. We decided long ago that cince MS support is worthless and we pay through the nose and the answres were found using google anyways, that linux needs inside support only. Plus sticking with an older distro means you have much MUCH fewer problems and the testing servers that all patches get tested at ensure that your deployed patches are safe.

        Exactly the same proceedures we used when we were 100% windows shop. Nothing changed
      • I know, it's a long way from downloading ISO's from bittorrent. But the business world does things differently (surprise).

        Bullshit.
        I've been admin for a 1 billion euro company and their main servers were Suse Linux systems installed and customized by their own people.

        A friend of me has been messing with the internal systems of a major bank. On the outside it's all "enterprise level" blabla. Inside, the admins make sure things work, and work their way.

        Business cares for one thing: It's gotta work. If you
    • >Many copies will be installed on multiple machines

      Yes, or the machines will be boot from one network image.
      But if you run Redhat og Suse enterprise products they would probably all be counted in statistics like this.

      >or just downloaded for free.

      Even if you buy 100 machines from Dell, and plan for format the drives and put Debian/Fedora/Gentoo on them, you might still order them with Linux just to make sure the hardware is compatible.

      Actually some of the 61% increase might be that Dell machines bo
    • I'm Not sure about Enterprise as they alwas want something liable they buy supported servers.
      OTOH small bussines/Home offices ans some brave people use downloaded Linux. The question is which side is bigger than the other.....

      Any way, it's a good news for the community (e.g. Linux, FOSS, GNU).

  • Unix replaced on large scale (Score:5, Informative)

    by MadMirko ( 231667 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:24AM (#10175671)
    I guess we see this rise mostly from the various Unix brands getting thrown out of companies. My own employer is replacing Solaris (50 big servers, 250 workstations) with Linux wherever possible. A RedHat server license might be damned expensive when compared to a Microsoft server (and yes, I do mean bulk pricing for "enterprises"), but it's quite cheap if you compare it to a Solaris machine.
    • I must question your comparison of RedHat (I presume Advanced Server) vs. Solaris license costs. We have the opposite situetion: solaris costs us significantly less than RedHat, even though it's a bit appleas and oranges, as the two OS run on different hardware - mostly (we do have some x86 servers).

  • Surprised? No (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:32AM (#10175692)
    Why are we always shocked to hear that Microsoft might be losing market share to competitor X. When you have such a large segment of any market, you are bound at some point to see your lead eroded away.

    Regardless of whether or not you love or hate Microsoft/ Linux, the fact remains that both serve a different purpose at the corporate level. While Linux still leads as the most popular platform for hosting websites, Microsoft's IIS leads in intranet sites for most major companies.

    There is a place in the market for both Microsoft and Linux -- Microsoft's biggest problem is IBM and others push of Linux to the masses. Without heavy licensing fees, and with IBM's focus on small business consulting, they can easily modify Linux to suit individual companies wants and desires. This customization, currently, is not a key part of the Windows system. That is what direction, IMO, Microsoft should look in taking itself to compete.

    (For the record, the offering of the new stripped down version of XP to many developing nations is one example of truely targetting your market).
    • Targeting your market is correct, but not the way you think. This wasn't a way to offer a low cost version, this was a low cost version they could use to make people stop asking for low prices.

    • I think the biggest gains for Linux comes at the server level, where the stability of Linux and its very low licensing costs have made gains especially against commercial UNIX variants like Solaris. Of course, it helps that IBM (still a highly-respected name in the computer industry) is heavily pushing Linux for their Big Iron machines on the AS/400 and S/390 architectures.

      Alas, Linux is not quite there with desktop machines, especially for home users who want to connect scanners, digital still cameras and

  • GNU/Linux Shines (Score:3, Informative)

    by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:39AM (#10175712) Homepage Journal
    It's good to see people using GNU/Linux where it shines. Stability, performance, maintainability, auditability, and continuity are all important qualities for server deployment. They are also qualities that GNU/Linux offers more than most other solutions. What of the BSDs, though?

  • Hmm.... time for long-term investing? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DenialS ( 21305 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:42AM (#10175717) Homepage Journal
    When even Microsoft is admitting that Linux server shipments are growing faster then Microsoft server shipments, that's news.

    Can anyone track down the original Gartner report that indicated 50% of server sales would be Linux by 2008? The linked article just mentions the Gartner report (and all-important statistic) in passing, but doesn't provide a proper reference for fact-checkers. Google [google.com] didn't do the trick for me, it did turn up an article about an IDC report released in June 2004 that predicted Linux server shipments would rise to 29% in 2004 [computerweekly.com], a fairly significant difference.

    Novell's stock [yahoo.com] is looking pretty attractive at $5.80, given that they're trading close to their 52-week low and now own SuSE, one of Red Hat's only commercial competitors. Mind you, Red Hat is actually earning a profit [yahoo.com] these days, even though their price::earnings ratio is about 100.

    So is it time to invest in Linux stocks (again), except this time with an eye for the long-term instead of the wild ride of the late 90's?

    • I'd invest in Debian if I were you.

    • Re:Hmm.... time for long-term investing? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by njdj ( 458173 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @09:26AM (#10176223)
      Novell's stock is looking pretty attractive at $5.80

      The main effect of the rise of a competitive OS will be to lower prices to users, as Microsoft loses its ability to charge monopoly rents. In other words, the businesses that will really gain are computer software users, not computer software sellers or distributors.

      The best way to profit from this trend in the stock market, therefore, is to bet against high profit growth of companies like Microsoft. Microsoft currently trades at a P/E multiple of 36. The long-term historical average for stock P/E ratios is in the range 14 to 17, so Microsoft's current price builds in the assumption that their profits will continue to grow exponentially, as they have in the past. If (like me) you think it unlikely that Microsoft will be able to double its profits anytime soon, then you could sell MSFT short. I sold at a price of $28.5 and it closed on Friday at $27.11, so the trade is doing OK so far.
      If you do this, you need to control your risk, of course. Check the price every day, and if it closes above $29, accept that I was wrong and close the position.
      Otherwise, there's a good chance that it will go down to $20 or less, so you're risking $1.89/share for a very good chance of gaining $7/share or more. Those are good odds.

  • stats (Score:3, Funny)

    by tuxter ( 809927 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:53AM (#10175751) Journal
    27.9% of statistics are made up.

  • a couple of points. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JaJ_D ( 652372 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @07:59AM (#10175766)
    1) What do they mean by "shipped"? is this only the units sold by people like Redhat, IBM, etc.. Or does it take into account all the versions of Linux download and used? With Windows its easy to say "I have sold x many licences, therefore there are x many servers/users" but with Linux you cant - the numbers are likely to be a lot higher.

    2) It's nice to see the SCO lawsuit had such a dramatic effect that the total number of unit of Linux sold has risen. 30+Million dollars of MS^H^H SCO/Venture capital money burnt, with no tangable benefits - other than cementing linux place in the world of IT.

    I wonder how worried MS really is about this?

    I get an inclining of how the Ewoks/rebels must have felt as the sole destroy, all encompassing, stiffling empire fell apart around them. *sigh* Sometimes life is good...

    Jaj
    • I get an [inkling] of how the Ewoks/rebels must have felt...Sometimes life is good.

      Trust me. If I ever, at any stage, start feeling like an Ewok I will not be describing my life as good.

      Cheers,
      Ian

    • What do they mean by "shipped"? is this only the units sold by people like Redhat, IBM, etc.. Or does it take into account all the versions of Linux download and used?

      Def a good question. But on another angle, I'm also wondering if this counts servers that are shipped with no OS installed or OS software included. Where I work, we just bought a couple of servers from a smaller vendor that did offer linux installs, but only Red Hat or SuSE, neither of which we wanted. And I imagine of lot of business will d

  • Linux Must Become Easier to Install & Use (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mslinux ( 570958 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:11AM (#10175816)
    Just yesterady, I got an email from a local sys admin about Win Server 2003. He said it wouldn't boot so he couldn't install it. To make a long story short, he was trying to boot the server with the MS Office 2003 CD (the office suite, not the OS).Later that same day, the same sys admin sent another email about needing to reboot the exchange server to "clear up" a problem.

    The moral of this story is that *most* sys admins are not capable of installing or using Linux (or any other OS) unless it's dumbed-down to the childish level of the current Windows OSes.

    • Re:Linux Must Become Easier to Install & Use (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tehanu ( 682528 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:28AM (#10175907)
      Why don't they just hire a better admin? I keep on hearing about the high rate of IT unemployment and how many talented people are out of work. How on earth does someone so incompetent keep his job when it is essentially an employer's market out there? For home users and even small business offices (where the boss or random employee who looks like he might know more than average about computers ends up taking care of everything), well yes, ease of install and use is important, but surely anyone deserving of the title "sys admin" shouldn't need any "dumbing down".

      • Incompetent IT Workers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Prior Restraint ( 179698 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:55AM (#10176053)

        The reason incompetents don't get fired is because competent people cost more, at least from a hard-dollar perspective. Incompetence costs a company money, but in ways that are hard to pin down. It's far too easy for someone to shift blame; one of the keystones of Dilbert-esque companies is that it's virtually impossible to point to one person and say, "The buck stops here." Where I work, you can't even volunteer for the position. People think you're trying to make some kind of power-grab. Management wants to pretend the developers are all interchangeable cogs, shuffling us between teams as staffing needs dictate, and then they wonder why the overall result is mediocre.

      • I keep wondering that myself. (Any PHBs out there care to comment?) My wife's company is in a similar situation. At one point, they hired anyone that could spell the word "code" as a software engineer. This was for some major software ramp-up. Couple of years later, the enterprise-wide project is severely limping along. They're staff is filled with incompetent developers who basically could get away with filleting a fish on their desk, and only receive a slap on the wrist. We still cannot figure out
    • The moral of this story is that *most* sys admins are not capable of installing or using Linux (or any other OS) unless it's dumbed-down to the childish level of the current Windows OSes.

      The problem is that that level of "competence" is accepted in the market place.

      You would never even think about hiring a car mechanic, an architect or even a plumber whose knowledge of the field is equivalent to that displayed by the typical windos admin.

      No surprise the IT landscape is as fucked as it is, whether you lo
    • This says nothing about Linux.

      If a system admin is dumb enough to think that MS Office 2003 is windows 2003 then he is in the wrong line of work. The fact that your neighborhood MSCE can't figure out how this linux thingie works is not Linux's problem. We all know that MSCE is just a name, not something that demonstrates how well they know a system.

  • Network appliances (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Technician ( 215283 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:12AM (#10175819)
    I wonder if they count SOHO (small office home office) network appliances in the count. Many of the small easy to manage small network storage and connectivity appliances use Linux or OO software. Examples that come to mind are some of the broadband routers, the ActionTec dual PC modem, and the Buffalo LinkStation net attached storage and print server.

    Windows OS prices and bloat keeps MS products off these embeded OS items, even though MS markets their embeded Win CE as a capable product for the embeded devices market.
    • I think they put that under a different market category.

      WindowsCE isn't even a viable product for headless network computers, IMO. I mean, a Linksys WRT54G costs just under $60 street price, a little less for wholesale. Even a bulk licence could nearly double the price.
      • I mean, a Linksys WRT54G costs just under $60 street price, a little less for wholesale. Even a bulk licence could nearly double the price.

        My point exactly when I said "Windows OS prices and bloat keeps MS products off these embeded OS items"

        It's very hard for MS to tell Linksys or Buffalo that Linux has a higher TCO than Win CE. MS never expected these devices to reach these low prices that open software enables. Routers should still be about $300 and have MS software. A sub $100 router probably cau

  • Wait for Longhorn (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:26AM (#10175899)
    While it is news that even Microsoft admits that Linux is making inroads in the server market, there shouold also be a warning here.

    Microsoft is almost certainly not going to take this lying down. Their biggest development effort right now is Longhorn. Some of the things that they say about Longhorn (the fact that they need to roll it out on clients and servers at the same time, in particular) makes me think that they will modify the networking protocols enough that Linux servers will no longer be able to play with Microsoft desktops.

    Many large companies out there are running Windows on the desktop and connecting them to Linux servers. I think when Longhorn is released they may not have any choice about what server software to use anymore.
    • the fact that they need to roll it out on clients and servers at the same time

      All joking aside, how many corporations do you know that plan upgrades along the lines of "every single system in the business, desktop & server, must be upgraded simultaneously, there can be no exceptions"? If what you say is true, I can see it acting as a major stumbling block to Longhorn being adopted in business.

    • Re:Wait for Longhorn (Score:2, Insightful)

      by JeremyGL ( 765476 )
      I really don't think Microsoft is going to be able to keep to this plan of rolling out an OS on all servers and clients at the same time. No medium to large company is going to buy into such a "Big Bang" implementation plan and if the problem is compounded by breaking the link between Linux and Longhorn then I think there'll be a whole lot less Microsoft desktops and servers around the globe post Longhorn.

    • Re:Wait for Longhorn (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zapdos ( 70654 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @09:04AM (#10176100)
      This would haunt Microsoft for a long time.
      Where I work 80,000+ employees, we naturally have separate server and desktop teams. Making Longhorn networking incompatible with current networking, will make it impossible for us to migrate to longhorn.

      Changing the required number of server and client systems to longhorn in order to have a working system would take at least five full weeks.

      What company wants to be out of business for five weeks.

    • or they might remember.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by zogger ( 617870 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @09:05AM (#10176112) Homepage Journal
      ...XPSP2 and decide that longhorn just isn't worth it-the risk, cost, headache, bugs, etc- and switch the desktops to some linux instead of the servers back to MS.

      Honestly, the only thing I can see coming with MS is for them to go completely on the offensive with patents and copyright lawsuits and hope to scare and bully and maybe even legislate their way to staying topdog. I don't see them being able to do it on just quality/price and a normal market scene for much longer. The only people left who aren't considering Linux are very casuasl and unsophisticated home users, anyone more technologically savvy above that level is at least thinking about linux now. At some time MS will feel threatened enough to start using their portfolios very agressively, think SCO type action times 1,000. They could carve out a few billion just to start the lawsuits and not break sweat. Then they could start lobbying. We have the easiest bribed legislature and executive branch and probably judges evah now. This is the most high level "consultant fee" friendly government I can remember going way back. Those who already have the coin to spread around are not hesitating to "share the wealth" with those charged with maintaining what passes for "law" nowadays.
    • i won't care, it will just compel me to push forward with plans to change desktops. as have as patents go it don't care, my desktops and servers are all freebsd, the last mega corp to go after a bsd went down in flames and no one has been dumb enough to challenge since.

    • Re:Wait for Longhorn (Score:5, Interesting)

      by say ( 191220 ) <sigve@wo l f r aidah.no> on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @09:17AM (#10176181) Homepage
      Many large companies out there are running Windows on the desktop and connecting them to Linux servers. I think when Longhorn is released they may not have any choice about what server software to use anymore.
      Well, my university [www.uio.no] has got only unix/linux backend servers, and mostly windows 2K/XP clients. If Longhorn won't play well with the Samba/IMAP solution on the unix servers, they aren't going to upgrade to Longhorn. I doubt MS will put themselves in this position. A _lot_ of major businesses will simply choose to not upgrade. They are concerned with getting stuff that works - in the cheapest possible way. Longhorn would have to include some _really_ powerful effectivity-producing functions if businesses are going to change their entire server system just to get it. And by the way, universities and colleges are probably really important to Microsoft, because they need young people to learn their products. Most universities (at least in Europe) use unix servers for everything. MS isn't likely to upset them too much. Universities have clever sysadmins who know damn well how to set up *nix graphical clients as well.

      • Re:Wait for Longhorn (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Technician ( 215283 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @09:33AM (#10176273)
        If Longhorn won't play well with the Samba/IMAP solution on the unix servers, they aren't going to upgrade to Longhorn.

        Agreed. More important is the browser. If it doesn't work with Apache, then as far as MS is concerned, Longhorn is broken and can't access most of the Internet. Many corporations are using web based solutions. My timecard is web based. So is our internal newsletter, campus maps, HR information, safety guidelines, employeed education courses, polls, etc. If Longhorn breaks the way we do business, we'll probably find something else that works as a client.
      • A company like MS doesn't really care about that market. Look at the percentage penetration they have in the various markets the sell to. Internal corporate servers? King of the hill. Client systems? King. Consumer systems? King. Schools? They have some, they don't have others, but its not a huge industry. There's growth there, but not tens of billions worth.

        There are markets where they still represent a single percentage in terms of market share. Those are the capabilities of Longhorn and its associated b

    • Re:Wait for Longhorn (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mcrbids ( 148650 )
      Some of the things that they say about Longhorn (the fact that they need to roll it out on clients and servers at the same time, in particular) makes me think that they will modify the networking protocols enough that Linux servers will no longer be able to play with Microsoft desktops.

      And, this would be one of those things that would probably vault Linux forward rapidly. If it's all new, what's the advantage of Windows?

      Take a look here [joelonsoftware.com] for an interesting article on how Microsoft is losing the "API war

  • Gartner Inc. (Microsoft) statistics - look into it (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @09:26AM (#10176228)
    Look into it. Gartner ALWAYS favours Microsoft products. (ie. "Windows has 95% of the market share" -- this stats doesn't include cell phones, PDAs, game platforms, but does include sales of old PCs.) Skewed for sure.

    Wonder why? Look into it. Gartner Inc. is a "separate" firm created by a certain firm to create (sell) all of these statistics (ultimately to serve the purposes of the firm.) Microsoft owns at least 20% of this underlying firm.
  • Linux is quite hard to get used to and I think putting an older Base unit to work as a webserver is a pretty good introduction to Linux, putting webpages into htdocs isn't difficult. I first ran apache under windows but found the box would crash regularly linux is much more stable.

    Stage2 into introducing linux has to be vnc (get realvnc and play with 2 windows boxes first) however configuring it isn't that easy with linux which is where I recomend this book as a step by step guide to a lot of things, chapt
  • It's really tough to document just how fast the transition is taking place. I know for a fact a lot of NT 4 boxes are being upgraded to Linux, not 2000 or 2003. I don't remember reading in the article, which is written from MSFT's perspective, how those were counted.

    Interesting that MSFT only expects 10 to 30% of their Software Assurance customers to renew. Not a surprise to anyone but MSFT. lol.

    For some reason when I hear "Software Assurance" I always think of "Information Retrieval" in the movie Br

  • Growth as a percentage of last period's shipment becomes significant only as total shipments become commensurate with the competition's. If Linux shipped two units last year and four this year then that's 100% growth, but 200% of "negligible" is still "negligible".

    The total shipments of one competitor as percentage of the total across all competitors tells a much more interesting story, and in this case the theme is that Linux is indeed a serious competitor, taking one fifth of new installs.

    It's high tim
  • It's good to see that even Gartner believes that Linux and Windows will be comparable in 2008. But they are probably greatly underestimating the number of machines that run Linux as a server OS: most Linux installations aren't "shipped" and are hard to count. I suspect there are already more actual Linux server machines than there are Windows machines.

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