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Linux Business

Ask Dan Kusnetzky About Linux Server Counts 109

Posted by Roblimo from the is-it-science-art-or-marketing? dept.
How many people run Linux as a desktop OS? How many servers run Linux? Is the Linux server market share 8.6 percent or 24 percent or somewhere in between? Dan Kusnetzky is a heavily quoted analyst at IDC who wrestles with questions like these for a living. This is your chance to find out how analysts come up with all those numbers -- and why analysts seem to disagree with each other so often. One question per post, please. We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated ones to Dan, and post his answers as soon as we get them back.
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Ask Dan Kusnetsky About Linux Server Counts More

Ask Dan Kusnetsky About Linux Server Counts

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  • Possibly a stupid question... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How would a survey like this be conducted; how would the data be collected, and could that effect the outcome of the survey? Are there tested methods that can give you a more unbiased result, yet still give the true numbers? And how can any of this be proven?

  • Inquiring minds want to know... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
  • These surveys aren't after what OS someone chooses to use, it's what they are using. Should we say, "But 1/4 of those Navy users wanted to use Linux, so let's take away 90,000 from Win2K and give the number to Linux."

    People make the decision to use "x" for their own good reasons.

    What if you gave people the free choice to pick the word processor they wanted to use ?? A few years ago, you had MS Word and WordPerfect. Is one better than the other ?? Who knows... If Word does the job and I can buy the copies I need, I will. If WP does the same, I will. But not both. Same goes with spreadsheets. You used to have Excel, Quattro Pro, and Lotus 123...

  • That's a stupid question. Unlike proprietary OSs, one copy of Linux can be installed on any number of computers, so one CD sold does not correspond to one installation. Heck, you don't even need a CD to install it. On my last job I set up Debian on two machines via ftp. So, counting the number of copies sold would greatly underestimate the number of installations.

    A big problem I see with your methodology is that you probably overcount Linux server shipments. From what I understand (I may be incorrect here) you count each sale of Linux as a server shipment.

    So you don't even know if your assumption is correct, but you decide to karma-whore anyway.
    ___

  • Have you ever tried to make a serious analysis of the statistical confidence level of the reported numbers. Factoring in the statistical bias of your sampling technigue. Second what happens when someone with an important vested interest states that the numbers can't be right and submit reasonable arguments? What is the methodology uses? and does that not constitute a bais in its own right since not all "stake holders" get to question your data before publication
  • Well, I can answer that! As a "third world" admin, (you forgot south america in your "third world" classification) Yes, our IP's are scanned all the time for statistical information gathering.
  • I'm curious how often the professional analysts and technology prophets go back and check their predictions. How often do you go back through articles you wrote three years ago that said "In three years, this product will have X% of market share" or "In three years this industry will be worth $X billions" and then look at the market today and see how far off you were?
  • hmm.. how about "katz dyke nun"

    coincidence? you decide.
  • Even ten, you have to be careful - say a company that has an 8-node round-robin NT server farm (and most big NT sites are multi-node, since NT's stability sucks so much that that's the only way to get even semi-decent reliability out of it), that collectively services N hits/sec - if you wanted to skew the figures in different ways, you could count it as 1 server serving N (reasonable), 8 servers serving N/8 (reasonable), or the microsoft favourite, 8 servers serving N...

  • Irrespective of the debate about server and server operating system sales numbers and shares, isn't the decline in the rate of increase of revenues an indication that the ambitions of those who sought to gut the market with commodity options, as Microsoft did in the past, are being realised? It's not world domination, but it's saving us all a healthy bit of cash.

  • Who? (Score:1)

    by ONOIML8 ( 23262 )
    Who does your hair?
  • Define static. My IP hasn't changed in 6 months. It may however change tomorrow since it's not up to me.
  • Slight correction: Gartner's analyst claimed (in the ZDNET article) that they asked what OS users had installed on new servers within a certain period.

    Gartner reported (in their actual report) numbers of servers that were shipped.

    It could have simply been bad wording in the report. If so, they haven't corrected it yet. The actual report speaks only of the amount of Linux installed on shipping servers, and says absolutely nothing about later installs.

    Unless Gartner actually releases more information about their survey, it's impossible to know whether the problem was bad wording in the report or bad wording in the survey. Either way, I definately have doubts about the validity of the final numbers.
  • I guess you would be the first to really appreciate the numbers from IDC. Yes?
  • SuSE already does this.

    When wvdial runs through its scripts, after it gets the nameserver, it will try to resolve www.suse.com (or .de, I forgot) and if it doesn't resolve it tells you that the nameserver is bakey (and says that it couldn't resolve SuSE).

    Whether or not SuSE actually uses this data, I have no idea.

    It's not in the documentation, but it's hardly hidden. You'd have to be blind not to see it scroll by on a bad setup or baked DNS.

    It IS there, however. Anyone know anything else about this?
  • So we'll only ask "computing celebrities" and "computer experts" what OS they run and... how is any of this relevant again? You run what works for you, so who gives a shit what some stats say the guy next door is probably running?
  • What operating system do you use at home?
  • There is a lot more do being a HTTP server then just fetching files off the file system and dumping it over a socket. Most websites incoperate server side scripting and databases.

    For example if slashdot we're a static site I would guess that it would be much faster and available. However Slashdot is not a static site, it's one of the most dynamic sites on the web, it constantly works the hell out of MySQL it caches the results, and serves up static pages (i.e. the home page)

    I think most people here are really interested in the nebulas question "what OS is the _best_" which of course you really can't answer. However I think if you we're going to use the amound of traffic a OS can handle as a measuring stick, then it's only fair to talk about constant load, and complexity or that load rather then just the number of 'hits'.

    The problem with calculating that metric is that it's WAY more complecated and subjective then just hits, which may make it dam near unatainable. I mean how would you compare the complexity of a mod_perl+ssh+MySQL site vs. a WebSphere+Apache+DB2 or IIS+MTS+COM+. You could have to come up with a number saying, "ok this is a complexity of 8, where is is a 5' and you really can't do that.

    -Jon

  • Dan,

    Are you ever concerned that analysts such as yourself have an unhealty amount of influence on the computer industry?

    It seems to me that many analysts predictions amount to self-fulfilling prophecies. ie., Analyst 'X' says that Server 'Y' has the largest market share, so IT managers everywhere follow a herd mentality and only use Server 'Y', creating a vicious cycle. Do you think that this effect is real, and if so, does it result in innovation being stifled in the industry?

    -Bruno

  • On the day/days of redhat7.1 release the sunet ftp server was unreachable. This is the fastest server in Sweden and probably one of the fastest in Europe, it was down due to the release of a Linux dist. When you do your serveys do you check download stats from the major servers as most Linux users gets their distros from there?
  • The chances are that someone who had a clue about the organization's IT direction made the decision for them. In other words, those people don't count.
  • Linux becomes a server as soon as you 'startx'.



    I know I know there are other servers started first, you know what I mean.

  • what, to you, is more important. desktop environments/eyecandy ie Gnome, KDE. or a common standard base for Commercial venders/Open source developers.
  • In your opinion, is OS market share (meaning 'sales') more important than installed base? Which of these do you think that the average user should be more concerned with?
  • IDG is a different company than IDC.
  • The results from these surveys such as these get a lot of attention in the media and on sites such as slashdot. But who are the real users of this data? Is anyone making strategic business decisions based on what IDC or GartnerGroup says?
  • I've found that the problem with most statistical tests is the H0 (i.e. the question we are asking about some parameter). Don't confuse with the questions you may ask in the survey but rather what you are wondering about the market. E.g. if you are asking what were the purchased OS of the Fortune 500 companies is different to the actual OS deployed throught anybody with a non-personal server connected to the internet. Where do you state that information clearly and how do you design the survey for a given question?
    How do you design your sampling methods when such questions are answered?
    How do you deside which errors are you more willing to accept? Because you may design a low power question if it's less biased than other or are you willing to sacrifice a bit more of Type I/II error for a less biased survey desing? Who makes this decisions and with which rules?
    Do you test the sample for statistical properties? Do you segment your sample candidates to represent your desired universe?
  • Gartner and IDC are counting different things.
    IDC counts Linux server licenses as tabulated by distributor sales and perhaps spot check polls.
    Gartner is counting new server hardware shipments with Linux pre-installed/ordered. Given that much (more than 50%) of new Linux licenses are installed on old hardware, the discrepancy is easy to understand.

    Finally, given the nature of OSS distribution, there are, ahhh, large standard errors in these estimates anyway.

  • One of the biggest questions with Linux and it's introduction into the server/desktop market is the GUI interfaces that come with it. Now-a-days, it really doesn't matter what distro you run to any great degree. It just matters how it looks to the average person.

    Since the onset of the GUI environment, OSs have changed entirely. Since Linux is more of a brute and rooted "hands-on" OS, one of the biggest struggles has been to make it 'look pretty'.

    To many of the /. readers, this is less of an issue, but if Linux is to put a severe dent in the desktop market, it's a pretty important issue to be raised. To that end, several companies have started to produce desktop-environments designed to include the kitchen sink in GUIs and make the point-and-click users happy.

    In your opinion, is there any apparent leader in this sector? Certainly, GNOME and KDE are two of the standards, but I refer more to compaines like XIMIAN (formerly HelixCode), XFCE, Enligtenment, AfterStep, WindowMaker, Blackbox, and so on...

    Are any of these companies steering in the right direction for the end (desktop) user? Or are they simply following the trends and hopeing they end-up on top of a big pile of money?

    G.

  • How do you (try) to determain Linux market share?

    Gartner reported that they asked end users what OS they were using on their new servers. They did not ask what came preinstalled (despite what all the /. posters who had not read the actual article were claiming during the 8/24 debate).

    To me this seems like a decent way of determining market share. It would be interesting to hear more about the characteristics of the end users that Gartner polled. The specific industry and size of a company often dictates technical choices of that nature, and if Gartner did not have a broad cross-section then their results could be questioned.

  • Seems to me that the subterfuge in this is not really gartner, but the definition of the survey.

    IIRC, it's all based on the "shipped OS" - which is defined, as you would expect, in the definition of what is being surveyed.

    this, of course, leaves it wide open for interested parties to imply other parameters (since people are usually too lazy or ignorant to read and understand such terms of reference) when they commentate on the findings. Far to much of this corporate spin-doctoring going on at the moment! - after all they're not going to headline "OEMs predominantly shipping Windows in pre-installed market" - not enough spin there to stir a cup of tea.

  • What do you use to define server or workstation ? Server could mean, dedicated server doing things like HTTP or FTP only. It could also mean a machine that provides some sort of network service. If the second is that case, what about people like my mother inlaw. She uses Mandrake 7.2 has here only OS. She also has her website on her machine and what not. Is this a server or workstation ?

    How about the other way around ? The machine handles serving webpages all day ... but is also used for Q3A once a day (or a few times a day)

    Some people would say that what it does more then 51% of the time is what it is. Where do you draw the line. Its a difficault thing to say.

    How many machines are running Linux vs NT vs BSD, is more possiable, imo


    until (succeed) try { again(); }
  • Excuse me while I piss myself laughing....!

    Tom.

  • If they host linux world, then I would not trust them. I would prefer gartner anyday. Just because some one says something you don't like doesn't mean their wrong.

  • I'm looking at USA Today quoting IDC & Gartner as MS having a 92% share of desktop OS - now, if *nix is claiming at least 8%, and MacOS is claiming somewhere in the neighborhood of 8%... sommat's wrong here. Does MS count servers? Maybe they count my cob-webbed Works 4.0 as being a desktop application and counting me as an MS user? ( I consider Works a diagnostic tool - when I want to make sure my iBook is configured right - I just run MS works - if it runs without an error and actually prints something, I know something must be dreadfully wrong with my system.)
  • Extending the issues raised by others:
    • connordb - results for funder not the public
    • dmccarty - palm OS predictions wrong
    • bwoodring & dvc - include & self-fulfulling predictions
    What is your view on the ethics of producing results which are used specifically to deceive and manipulate? I appreciate that your business is merely providing a service, but since that service often boils down to "whoring for figures" to support some funders marketing spin (i.e. they pay you, you give them what they want), can you (as a business) command any respect for what you do, and for your reports?
  • Why does it even matter what one company says is the percent of servers that run Linux or have been shipped with Linux?

    Does anyone really care if the number is 8% or if it is 80%?

    I run Linux as a server because it works better than anything else I've tried. I run Linux as a desktop because it works better than anything else I've tried. Why all the numbers and why do they even matter?

  • Do you think Gartner Group caved in ethically when Microsoft paid them for this study?

    There wasn't any "caving in." For better or worse, that's what Gartner does. They're not Consumer Reports.

    Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

  • fork, or spoon?

  • I would like to ask:

    How many computers, in total, run Linux?
  • Dan,

    8.6% Is this a good number in your view of the industry? Has there been an indication of positive growth in the industry? And what is the perception of Linux by corporate users?

    Thanks.
  • Why not the amount of data processed, the number of clients served, etc, etc.
    I don't think people would agree on a single measure, especially when it doesn't favor them.

    And how would you get all that data???
  • Every time there is a study we always are told that it was funded by company X. And when this happens the study is usually tilted in favor of company X.

    Is this because analysts change the results of studies in favor of the company that is funding it? I was thinking that it was more likely that company X only releases the the information in the study to the public when the results are favorable to them so their stock will increase. How can we tell which studies to trust and which ones not to?
  • In Windows, a great many machines that are not servers in any way run the "server version'' OS (NT or 2000). Mostly these are machines that require the NTFS for whatever reason, video editing would be one example. I don't know much about the world of cubicles, but don't a lot of companies have NT or 2000 on everyone's desktop? So how's that for an overcount?

    The "serverness" of the machine should probably be determined by the hardware, like RAID arrays and such.

    Art At Home [artathome.org]

  • I am not sure this would work. There are a lot of people (myself included) who never register products.

    Also, what if you do a reinstall? Does it ask to register again?

    Also, this is extra work. Any tech who has to intall linux on 20 machines will not want to register each install.

    Besides, no one needs to know what I do or don't do with my machines.

    What about dual-boot machines?

    I think that cold-calling would not work. I don't do phone surveys. I hate them (do you somewhat agree? do you somewhat disagree? Arrghh!)

    Besides, for companies, the survey should be more refined: it should ask the preferred OS for specific tools, not servers. for example:
    - Mail server
    - Internet servers
    - Intranet servers
    - FTP servers
    - Print servers
    - File servers
    - Application servers
    - SQL db servers
    etc.
    Then we would get a much better view of what people are using in the Enterprise.

    And forget asking the users. you need to ask the sysadmins. (our users think everything runs NT--mostly, but not all :)

  • Does anyone (or would anyone consider) writing a really w1ck3d shell script to run like, say, a search engine's spider and figure out what servers are being run (by checking a couple of ports unique to each OS, etc) on servers, and run it nonstop for a month or two or three in a widely distributed environment?
  • Many servers are not on the Internet and therefore not likely to be scanned. Banks and Insurance companies are likely to have many servers, but very few would sit out on the Internet and we wouldn't want them to. The problem then is, how do we tell what these servers are running. There are far more file, database, and application servers out there than there are web, ftp and mail servers.
  • With so many people howling that the pervasive internet is the "Next Big Thing", Linux has been making terrific inroads into the embedded space. Has IDC ever conducted a survey on the presence of Linux in the embedded market? If so, where can one find the results?

  • Re:why not just ask? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Dialing numbers and asking what is running is what Gartner did when they came up with 8.?%. From their article, note they had installed on it :

    http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011 ,2772060,00.html

    But Gartner's Hewitt was adamant that his methodology and findings were correct. Some 724 U.S.-based respondents had answered questions over the phone for the survey, he said, ranging from small organizations with fewer than 50 PCs to large companies with more than 500 computers, as well as educational institutions, Internet service providers and application service providers.

    Respondents were screened to ensure they were knowledgeable about server purchases over the quarter, and they were asked what percentage of their server purchases were Linux servers, he said.

    "We went to end users, rather than looking at just sales numbers, and asked them what servers they had bought over the past three months and what operating system they had installed on it over the same period," Hewitt said. "There was no question about whether Linux was preinstalled or not, we simply asked about new shipments and this is what we found."

  • Don't any of you find it all amazing how you blindly accept the statistics from IDC, but question the ones from Gartner?

    All because IDC has larger numbers.

    I would seriously like to see IDC justify these numbers as accurate. From what I've seen of their press releases they extrapolate off some pretty questionable data.

    At least Gartner went to the trouble of performing a survey.

  • What you're really asking is if Gartner Group or whatever consulting group in question is willing to sell their name with a set of "results".

    I'm sure they are, as long as there's some plausable truth in the results.

  • Bet their methodology is "Company Confedential".

    FWIW: At a place where I worked (many years ago), that was a higher category than official US Govt. Secret.
    Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
  • Personally, I call it a server if it has a static IP address. ftp, etc., can be easily added and removed as desired. Changing the IP address is much harder.

    Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
  • I hope they aren't doing this on the basis of "# of copies sold", unless that's what they're trying to measure. It sure doesn't have much to do with the number installed. At home I have maybe 10 boxed sets of Linux, two CD's of Windows versions from MS, various different flavors and versions. I also have two copies of Linux installed, and one copy of Win95B. (Win98 got pulled, because I don't like my computer calling home without asking me. [Also because it crashed more than Win95, and was incompatible with the most important application we keep the computer for.])

    But if I owned a hundred computers, I'd have the same number of copies of Linux, and over 100 copies of Windows (it comes automatically with just about all computers, even it you get them with only Linux installed).

    So number of copies sold doesn't have much to do with number installed. It systematically overcounts Windows, and both over and under counts Linux.


    Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
  • What are the breakdowns for age and linux use? Does older mean wiser or does younger mean more 31337.

    Scott Ruttencutter
  • "One question per post, please"

  • Similarly, many Windows (yes, and *n?x) users run Napster and clones. Are these servers?

  • I'm wondering how these numbers help us in general. Right now, them seem to be nothing more than means to gloat and or demean competition. I've also read a couple articles like:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/19661.htm l

    which show the meaninglessness of statistics like these up to a point. What are your thoughts?

    NAS
  • How are copies counted?
    How are throw-aways counted?
    How are pre-load erases counted?
    How is piracy (of proprietary SW) counted?

  • Given that it's rather ironic that a Microsoft-funded study would actually slant in favor of the competition (even if there's a pretty clear bias against it in the first place), what do you, as someone who is part of this industry, think of the ethics involved in doing this kind of research for hire, and perhaps more importantly, should anyone outside the company commissioning the study really be paying attention to any such research in the first place?

    /Brian
  • Dan Kusnetzky is a heavily quoted [google.com] analyst [...]

    If you really want to check all of his quotes, try the same Google search with his name spelled correctly [google.com].

  • To quote the article -
    A recently released Gartner Dataquest report, sponsored by several companies including Microsoft, found that just 8.6 percent of server shipments in the U.S. during the third quarter of 2000 were Linux-based.
    I don't really have any trouble beleiving that Gartner's survey is probably correct, as long as you don't take it to mean "Linux makes up 8.6 percent of all servers currently on the internet." They seem to have established that 8.6 percent of servers sold by major vendors have Linux preinstalled. This is an important measure, but does fully speak to the larger question of Linux's server market share, or the rate at which it is growing. It is also important to realize that the server market has changed somewhat in the last year, and that those changes can be expected to distort sales figures somewhat.

    The things that it clearly does not take into account are:

    • Servers that come with Windows (or some other OS) that people wipe and install Linux on. Keep in mind that many vendors do not provide Linux as a pre-installed option, and (thanks to Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts) often do not offer to sell unconfigured systems. The result is that many companies who want to run Linux on their servers must buy Windows licenses anyway.
    • Many companies and organizations build their servers from scratch. If you assume that all servers are purchased from vendors and OEMs, these servers will seem to materialize out of thin air. Also, people who are savvy enough to build a server from scratch are also more likely to make an informed decision about what type of server to use (and thus, be more likely to go with Linux or BSD).
    • "Recycled" servers. In many companies, it is common practice to move aging desktop systems (especially the more powerful ones) into low-end server roles. For instance, intranet servers in small to medium sized companies. If the IT people know what they are doing, these former desktops will get formatted and rebuilt, and there's a good chance they'll get rebuilt with Linux, since one of the strong points of Linux is its ability to make good use of older hardware.
    • Beleive it or not, some people dual-boot servers. This is especially convenient when you put the bootable image on a hot-swap drive sled. This may sound odd, but it is partiularly convenient for production enviornments, where you might only need a server up for a night or two after a commit cycle. It's also conveinent with large database enviornmetns, where you need to do periodic aggrigations. I really, really doubt that you'd be able to find this option on a vendor's configuration page.
    • "Junker" servers, often built from aincent hardware. People save themselves piles of money by using 386's and such for routers and firewalls instead of paying for custom hardware. This is a good solution for many people, especially since Linux does a good job of utilizing older harware. This is different from "recycled" servers because routers and firewalls tend to be transparant peices of network infastructure. However, no one would despute that they are important.
    There are probably a few situations that I'm leaving out. The point is, how important are vendor statistics for measuring the Linux market share?

    It seems to me that the only way to make informed statements about server market share is to gather statistics at the source. Put together a statistically significant sample of companies, individuals and organizations, and ask them for a list of the servers they use, a description of of each (including OS), and an explanation of their choices. This seems like the only way to actually answer the bigger question of server OS market share. The answer might not make anyone happy, but at least it would be an answer.

    --

  • Um, you should take your own advice, AC. The fact is, Microsoft can and does punish OEMs for offering unconfigured systems. And the fact is, you'll have to look long and hard to find any vendor that will sell you an unconfigured system. None of the major vendors offer unconfigured desktop systems, and the same applies for servers.

    It's not a question of Microsoft being evil - the fact is, a lot of people used to opt for unconfigured systems, and would then install an unlicensed copy of Windows. That's a fact that Microsoft took note of, and acted to prevent. This is a very well established and open policy of Microsoft, not some underhanded conspiracy. It's not as if there's any dispute about this.

    --

  • In your estimation do you think MS' campaigns for "Shared Source" combined with their opinions of Linux as a server platform been effective in relegating Linux's ?

    By extension, what affect do you forsee on the numbers of server sales as a result of these campaigns?
  • The Microsoft funded study is obviously skewed. First let's look at how Microsoft computes its own "Market Share." In its computation, it adds in an accounting for "pirated copies." So clearly, for basis of comparison in most cases, Microsoft is not concerned only with "SALES" figures. So by limiting the study to only machines that are sold with Linux installed, they are skewing the truth immeasurably for two reasons: (1) People don't often BUY Linux (2) Microsoft has a standard practice of including "unpurchased copies" in use when calculating market share.

    Now I cannot know if Microsoft's number in this study include pirated software, but whether they did or not for this particular study is almost irrelevant! That fact is, you cannot count Linux installations by the number of machines sold with Linux on them. That's insane because that's not how Linux is most frequently distributed. It's also inconsistant with Microsoft's standard position where they claim an accounting for unpurchased copies in use. At the very least they should make efforts to remain consistant. But if they did, the numbers wouldn't be quite as favorable. They KNOW this.

  • My humble input:

    1. What is (or should be) the policy of paid analysts and consultants when they're doing research paid for by parties with a vested interest? How should this scenario be declared to the Readership?
    2. In determining IDG's numbers, were stats culled from corporate entities or was there any attempt to include 'personal' Linux servers attached to the Net?
    3. In the case of personal Linux servers, would't it be interesting to comment on their numbers and mere presence as a direct result of Linux availability? Put another way, how has Linux server availability impacted the shape and accessibility of the Net as we know it today?

    Thank you for your time.

  • As a sales and marketing manager, I often use analyst reports from IDC or Gartner when working with the CEO or CFO of a prospective customer because they trust the source. It amazes me how quickly a CEO will abandon the advice of an IT staffer based on a report from IDC or Gartner.


    If you were the CEO of a company faced with a long term technology decision, how much would you rely on analysts? What sources other than analysts would you look to to aid you in making your decision?

  • I agree that this is a good way to poll about the server OS.
    But, as you said, if they didn't have a cross group survey, then it's pretty useless.

    ISPs tend to use *nix deriatives, and office networks (file & print sharing, mainly) tend to be NT, frex.(Just the two most distinct groups that I could think of, don't flame me for this)

    You could get a totally true, but meaningless statistic if you poll your target correctly.


    --

    Two witches watch two watches.
  • How do you (try) to determain Linux market share?

    Many Linux installations have not been bought, after all.

    And while we are at the subject, how do you diffrenciate between Linux used as a desktop platform and as a server platform?

    --

    Two witches watch two watches.
  • And how would you get all that data???

    That's easy: get it from the FBI. They've got Carnivore systems planted all over the Internet that could snoop out this info. Since it's aggregate data, no warrant necessary. :-)

  • One thing I thought is if server x can do on one machine what server y does on four machines. Doesn't server x hurt itself?
  • When People magazine does an issue devoted to "what's hot" in fashion, do they interview Jane Doe from Des Moines, Iowa? No.
    Agreed. But the quality of analyses should be evaluated on the basis of their goals. Was this supposed to be a "what's hot" story, or a "what are most people buying" story, or a "who makes the best work clothes" story? I could personally care less what's hot in fashion.
    A technology company presumably put more informed thought into their choice of server than an art supply house or whatever.
    I would expect this to cleave along different lines. To my mind, companies for whom their computing platform is central will put more informed thought into their choice of server. Printing houses, post offices, polling companies, etc. are certainly as reliant on their computer infrastructure as technology companies (software dev, online sales, etc.) but will almost certainly have very different selection criteria.

  • What was your methodology. (Score:3)

    by Forge ( 2456 ) <kevinforge&gmail,com> on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:37AM (#151222) Homepage Journal
    How did you go about researching your figures? Who was involved? How many people companies or vendors did you ask? What statistics did you track?

    In short how did you come up with your figures. We could ask about the other figures too but since you didn't publish those someone else may have to answer that.

  • Factoring in the Captive Audience (Score:3)

    by superid ( 46543 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:19AM (#151223) Homepage
    How do you handle large blocks of users that are forced (often against their will and better judgement) to use a particular operating system? For example, 360,000 Navy users are forced [eds.com] to use Windows 2000.

    SuperID
    Free Database Hosting For Developers [freesql.org]

  • Linux can't feed you (Score:3)

    by ant-1 ( 120272 ) <ant-1NO@SPAMpouch.name> on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:30AM (#151224)
    During Linux servers market share study (or similar studies involving Linux), are you concerned about the fact that there's no big Linux company who will ever buy you such work, meanwhile Microsoft or other giants sure will ask again for it in the future ?
    Does it affects you or your team work ?

  • A question about your report (Score:3)

    by YU Nicks NE Way ( 129084 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @08:58AM (#151225)
    I've read your report, and I didn't find any description of the mechanism by which you came up with your estimate of the average number of times that a given purchased copy of Linux is installed. That's probably my own error, but since you're answering questions, would you be willing to enlighten me?

    You use the number "15". Frankly, I'm surprised that it is so big. Upon what data did you base that estimate? Who did you interview to get it? I realize that any such estimate would have to account both for the very large number of installs at large colocation and/or service provider shops, as well as the number of untrackable network installs that take place. But it would also need to account for the number of times where a machine had Linux installed upon it, was used as an experimental development platform, and then was wiped, not to mention the number of cases where somebody bought a distribution, and then never installed it at all.

  • Re:I just have to ask... (Score:3)

    by stox ( 131684 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:45AM (#151226) Homepage
    I would like to see a breakdown of server O/S weighted by usage. For example, a server that receives 1000hits/hour would have 1000 times more weighting than a server which receives 1 hit/hour. Such a weighting would give a much more honest view of usage. In other words, which server O/S is getting the most work done. I suspect this would lead to significantly different results from what we have seen so far.

  • linux ports. (Score:3)

    by saintlupus ( 227599 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @08:59AM (#151227)

    Many Linux desktops have ftp, telnet & http ports open, so do they count as severs too?

    no, they count as targets for l33t haX0rs, especially since the people who just installed mandrake from that wal mart cd don't even know they're open or use them...

    --saint
    ----

  • Hardware sales mean very little (Score:3)

    by motorsabbath ( 243336 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:36AM (#151228) Homepage
    When most desktop and server Linux users are building their own boxes, how can sales of server and pc systems be relevant? Most people I know that use Linux (myself excluded) first bought a PC with wDOS on it, removed that OS and installed something else. What kind of formula do you use to make up for this disparity between systems sold and systems built ?

  • Question (Score:4)

    by HeUnique ( 187 ) <hetz-home@cobol2j[ ].com ['ava' in gap]> on Thursday June 14, 2001 @10:17AM (#151229) Homepage
    Hi Dan,

    According to IDC figures, the Linux desktop market share was 5% and now it's less then 2%. Gartner numbers are of course differently (way lower if I'm not mistaken)

    Yet, when I look at developments of projects like XFree, KDE, Gnome, Linux kernel - or when you get the daily list from freshmeat, or even talking to the the ISP who host mirrors of ISO images of Redhat, Mandrake etc - then you see that linux get FAR more then 2%. Hell - if it was 2% and you account the developments of Linux - then each developer works 25 hours per day on a porject!

    So, as you can see - the numbers here are definately wrong here - and those numbers are actually hurting the Linux community. If an ABCD company wants to make a software for the Linux desktop and they see those IDC figures - then they will say something like "oh, 2%? no thanks - we'll make it for Mac - they are %5+", and we'll loose..

    Comments?

  • Company size. (Score:4)

    by viper21 ( 16860 ) <scott@NOspaM.iqfoundry.com> on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:36AM (#151230) Homepage
    Is there a relationship between company size and linux use?

    Do we have evidence of any companies with multi-million dollar revenues that rely on linux solutions for their servers or do most companies that use linux servers do it because they lack the money? (choice/only option)

    -S

    Scott Ruttencutter

  • Assuring accurate results? (Score:4)

    by thewiz ( 24994 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:47AM (#151231)
    Dan,
    How does IDC determine if the answers they are getting are valid? What I mean by this is how does your organization insure that the people they are surveying being truthful in their responses? I can see scenarios where a well co-ordinated group of people could be swayed by a vendor to influence the results of a survey, especially in a field as specialized as the IT industry.
    Also, if you suspect that the results of a survey are tainted, do you publish it anyway (with caveats included, of course) or redo it (at your time and expense)?

  • Re:Funding (Score:4)

    by mpe ( 36238 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:40AM (#151232)
    In studies of market share(or studies in general), we often hear quotes about who funded them. This seems to somehow imply that those who funded the study had some influence in how the data was gathered/interpreted.

    Even if the funder does not infulence the questions asked they may well control if the "results" see the light of day.

  • Re:Polling questions (Score:4)

    by mpe ( 36238 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:46AM (#151233)
    I have often wondered how biased polls are based on the questions asked, the demographics of the people polled, etc. When results about polls are made public, is it also possible to obtain information about how the poll was conducted in a simple, by request method?

    It's quite trivial for methodology to affect the results. That is why in any kind of scientific publication the method is considered at least as important as any conclusion.
    Not only is no methodology available "conclusions" are being called "results".

  • How do you discount overcounting? (Score:4)

    by adubey ( 82183 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @08:00AM (#151234)
    Hi Dan,

    This is probably going to be a tough question for you (if you ever get it, that is - given the bias on Slashdot, this probably won't be modded up).

    A big problem I see with your methodology is that you probably overcount Linux server shipments. From what I understand (I may be incorrect here) you count each sale of Linux as a server shipment. However, many of these copies may be tested but never used, a great many are used in home computers or development workstations. The problem is, unlike with Windows or OS/2, there is no ``client version'' vs. a ``server version''. There is no easy way to tell if a copy of Linux is used in a server environment or a client environment by sales figures alone. So my question is: given total Linux sales figures, how do you estimate the number used in server environments?

    Secondly, is it possible that the descrepancy between your numbers and Gartners' is due to a problem in the way you estimate Linux server sales?

  • What difference does it make? (Score:4)

    by cheezus ( 95036 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:42AM (#151235) Homepage
    What is the real world impact of these numbers? Is it just an ego boost for the producer of product X? Does it influence buying? Does it change R&D strategy? Especially since the numbers differ so much from analasyst to analasyst, how does anyone make any sort of decisions bade on this information?

    ---

  • why not just ask? (Score:4)

    by peccary ( 161168 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:12AM (#151236)
    The technical approach of talking to publicly accessible servers and attempting to fingerprint the OS is fraught with methodological problems.

    The naive approach of asking hardware vendors how many units of hardware ship with what OS is obviously flawed.

    So why not just do the dumb brute-force thing? Dial phone numbers at random and ask people what they use? Too expensive?

    How much is accurate data worth, anyway?

  • Trends (Score:4)

    by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:15AM (#151237) Journal
    Do you have any insight about trends that can be gleaned from these surveys - that is, regardless of what number one uses for the percentage of users that adopt Linux, is it static, taking off, steadily increasing, or what?

  • *what* consititutes a Linux server? (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:15AM (#151238)
    At what point does a computer become a server? Many Linux desktops have ftp, telnet & http ports open, so do they count as severs too?
  • I just remembered an Idea that a friend of mine suggested:

    What if IDC could work with the Linux distributions (RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, TurboLinux, Debian) to add a small program which will run after the first internet connection has been succsessfull..

    When this program runs - it will ask the user to "register" his copy of the distribution. If it has been purchased from one of the distributors - then the user can add his serial number. Some other questions like will this distribution be used as a server, a workstation, or combination of the 2, or a development workstation. The survey SHOULD be annonymous (unless the user wants to give some details about himself)

    By that way - the distributors can give the numbers back to IDC - and IDC can publish a report which will tell that the number of Linux installations - and that number is X. X is combined of Y free download version and Z purchased copies of Linux.

    What do you think, Dan? what the slashdot readers think about it?

  • Data origins (Score:5)

    by m2 ( 5408 ) <slashdot.org@noSpAm.spam.ksub.org> on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:14AM (#151240) Homepage Journal

    Do you base your data mostly on marketing analysis or do you actually go a pay a consultor to scan machines on the net? If there are scans involved, how do you pick the IP blocks to be scanned and what's the uncertainty associated with such a method (and how is this uncertainty guessed)? If there are no scans involved, why not? If this is "maket analysis", can you defined that for me? Which factors are involved? And a different question: who's the target market for this kind of study? How much does such a thing cost?

  • Reproducibility (Score:5)

    by DragonWyatt ( 62035 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:26AM (#151241) Homepage
    Has any thought been put into doing a "reproducibilty challenge" against Gartner? That is,
    1. Ask Gartner their methodology,
    2. Document it so that it can be reproduced;
    3. Make sure and get Gartner to say "yep that's how we did it".
    4. Dan&Co reproduces the methodology and compares the numbers
    Might be overly scientific. Maybe consider it an "Open Source" version of market research because of the peer review and verification. Some may think this approach has no place in the market research area.

    But, I (for one) think it would be interesting to call Gartner's Bluff (if indeed that's what this is). I personally place them (and ZD, etc) into the Shill [tuxedo.org] category.

    Thoughts anyone?

  • I just have to ask... (Score:5)

    by Ded Bob ( 67043 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:04AM (#151242) Homepage
    Might he have the stats on the BSD's. People from the BSD community are curious. :)

    TIA

  • Self-fulfilling analysis? (Score:5)

    by dvk ( 118711 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:13AM (#151243) Homepage
    Do you think that there exists a possibility (or can even provide examples of) self-fullfilling analysis, such as "analysis says X is losing market share=>people get skeptical about X=>X loses market share although it may not have done so otherwise"?

    If it is possible or already happened, do analysts in general (and you in particular) find it a worrisom possibility, and if so, are there any attempts/ideas to deal with the issue?

    Thanks,
    DVK

  • Funding (Score:5)

    by ritlane ( 147638 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:08AM (#151244) Homepage
    In studies of market share(or studies in general), we often hear quotes about who funded them. This seems to somehow imply that those who funded the study had some influence in how the data was gathered/interpreted.

    My question is: Do those who fund a study influence how the study turns out (ie. Microsoft studies show higher MS market share). Or is it that these corperations only decide to fund groups who they know will most likely return results in thier favor.


    ---Lane

  • Who Keeps track of the Predictions (Score:5)

    by dmccarty ( 152630 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @08:01AM (#151245)
    Mr. Kusnetzky,

    I have a question on the area of predictions in general. For example, fellow IDC analyst Jill House has been severaly negative on Palm over the years, with regard to the Win CE operating system and devices. A sample quote from her in Feb. 2000 read, "If I was Palm, I would be beside myself with panic. [zdnet.com]"

    The issue is, that over the last 3 - 4 years she's been predicting the demise of Palm and the rise of Win CE, a claim that has never materialized. Who verifies the reliability of these predictions and keeps the analysts accountable. With the frequent sound bytes and one-liners that they give to the press, these analysts have significant influence over public perception of the issues. But how is policing done when the analysts don't analyze very well?

    Sincerely,
    Daniel McCarty
    Palm OS Developer

  • What about the so-called "third world"? (Score:5)

    by Kareem Abdul-Lamarr ( 178445 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:42AM (#151246)
    Do these analyses factor in the so-called third world? Most of these analyses are US-centric or some times do include the continent across the pond but what about Africa and Asia? Do these analyses *really* take inputs from these continents?

  • Here's a simple one... (Score:5)

    by RareHeintz ( 244414 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:04AM (#151247) Homepage Journal
    Do you think Gartner Group caved in ethically when Microsoft paid them for this study? That is, do you believe it to be a purchased fabrication? Or might it be an honest mistake, a difference in data analysis, or something less sinister?

    Thanks for your time,
    - Brad Heintz
    --

  • Polling questions (Score:5)

    by cavemanf16 ( 303184 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:30AM (#151248) Homepage Journal
    I have often wondered how biased polls are based on the questions asked, the demographics of the people polled, etc. When results about polls are made public, is it also possible to obtain information about how the poll was conducted in a simple, by request method? Now if the answer to that question is, no, how much can we rely on polls, since we have no way of verifying if the questions asked and the people interviewed were heavily biased to favor one outcome over another? (Such as in the recent large discrepancies of the 8% vs. 24% use of Linux as a server results that we've seen on Slashdot recently).

  • More breakdown needed (Score:5)

    by BillyGoatThree ( 324006 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @07:09AM (#151249)
    When People magazine does an issue devoted to "what's hot" in fashion, do they interview Jane Doe from Des Moines, Iowa? No.

    So why are OS numbers reported with equal rating? Not all users are equally suited to *choose* an OS, therefore not all users *choices* are equally interesting. I'd really like to see a breakdown of OS by user-type (levels of education, field of degree if applicable, occupation, etc). Keep in mind this applies just as much to business. A technology company presumably put more informed thought into their choice of server than an art supply house or whatever.
    --

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