New Numbers on Linux Market Share Soon 611
prostoalex writes "New numbers on Linux market share are due this week. As far as global PC market is concerned, Gartner claims 5% of all PCs shipped this year ran Linux OS, although by the time the PCs were actually on the user's desk, only 2% of them run Linux. In the server world IDC estimates that Linux-powered servers comprise 28.3% of all server sales in 2004."
Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:2)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Something like ten million OEM Windows systems ship each month. Most people simply don't want to be drawn into a hobbyist project when they can order a customized system from Dell that is guaranteed to work out of the box.
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Those who do this generally realise that there's often no point in having the latest and greatest graphics, processor etc, because you're paying premium, so instead of getting a machine that advertises "cheap" but is actually "crippled" or one that advertises "high-end" but is actually "exorbitant" you put your own pretty decent but reasonably priced computer.
These days you can generally expect that a machine you put together will work, mostly first time. Sure, for the type-the-letter-to-grandma, you don't want to faff around with the bits AND risk it not working, but for many, it's half the fun.
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have bought several programs that run on Linux only. Also, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars or more to run Oracle and any middleware program, SAP, or thousands of other apps. Most of the apps for pay are enterprise apps at this point, but there are many out there. This is increasing all the time.
My attraction to Linux is NOT cost of the distro, I have PAID for RH, Mandrake, and other distros for years, happily. I like the freedom, the ease of maintaining many different systems from one desktop (via ssh and scripts) and the robustness of the OS.
As a side note, what will happen if Linux becomes ultra popular? More programmers will be needed, all working for free? Its not going to happen!
There is no reason you can't sell apps for Linux, the same as for Windows. This is a big misconception. If you take GPL code of someone else and build on that, then you have to release your code as GPL, but any project from scratch that doesn't use GPL libs (LGPL is ok) isn't subject to the GPL at all.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:3, Interesting)
So if your plan is to install
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:5, Informative)
The logic was thusly: Licensing agreements force them to ship the computer with SOME OS on it, but a lot of businesses already have a Windows site license. Because the price of the non-windows Dells was slightly lower than effectively purchasing the license a second time, the companies order these computers with one of those two OSes preinstalled, then wipe the drive and install WinXP/2000.
So while there are a small number of users purchasing their computers with Windows pre-installed and migrating to Linux, that number is effectively buried by businesses doing just the opposite.
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:5, Interesting)
MOST users running linux don't purchase a computer with it preinstalled. Since linux requires far less in terms of hardware to get the same or better performance usually they put a little memory in the computer they have and install linux on it. That includes businesses.
But what dwarfs the linux factors one way or another is the windows site licenses. For every desktop that an alternative OS was purchased on there are hundreds in which it was not, where they simply paid the MS tax despite their site license (like they've always done before).
Of course the difference in the numbers should be obvious, this could well constitute a pretty big chunk of the market, significantly reducing what is believed to the size of the market. This means x number of sales is really a larger percentage of the market than it is portrayed to be.
When it comes down to it, compared to legitimate copies, there really aren't that many pirated copies of windows... there just aren't. While they are common among techs, giving us the impression they are rampant, in reality I'd be surprised if techs and their families amount to even 1% of the market.
The kid/teenager of the house isn't an OS installer anymore than his parents or grandparents. He is wise in that he can successfully work the mouse and install most programs... a far cry from a pirated OS installation.
With linux on the other hand, there is a strong prevalance of technically literate users (the reasons for this are debatable and not the issue here). Almost every linux user can install the OS. Couple this with the fact that companies normally act as if linux is a "cheap and inferior" solution. Normally the pc's that come with linux preinstalled are in the $200-300 range and worth more like $150, they are usually crap a literate user wouldn't touch.
Aside from the price on the pc's, I fully admit I'm educated guessing the numbers. But from what I've seen... well I've never actually seen a system with linux preinstalled on it. I've seen lots of linux systems mind, many I've setup and have lots of friends using linux. Most of their computers are homebuilt (but not all). All in all, among desktop users I'd guesstimate about 200 linux pc's. Not a single one of them would be counted in these numbers.
In the businessworld it's much the same. Support contracts are an issue for obscure software only in small businessland. Corporations want accountability, small business wants it to work and wants someone to call to fix it when it's broke, they don't care about fingerpointing.
On the business side I've setup countless workstations and several hundred linux servers. Out of all of them only one was even a purchased license, all the rest were download editions of the software. A support contract would be pointless, if they have a support contract it's still us they call if they have a problem, we are local and can fix the problem before they finish holding.
You also don't need to buy a boxed version for updates. Really using the vendor update mechnism is probably the last thing I'd recommend to a customer. With redhat distros in particular, redhat drops support too fast and is slow on the updates in comparison with well known and trusted 3rd parties (*cough*freshrpms*cough*) who still provide updates for redhat version 6.2 last I checked.
5% of the desktop market, I doubt it's that low. 5% of oem preinstalls, perhaps. As for whether it had that OS on it when it hit the desktop, if you consider that, you have to consider all the rest I've mentioned above and more and the result is the desktop market, not the OEM preinstall numbers gartner is claiming.
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:5, Insightful)
not only that, but how the heck can they possibly know how many people are running linux or not running it?
I understand they can count the number of linux pc's going out the door, but how do they know people are installing winxp or not?
also, how do they know how many linux desktops are out there? are they just counting how many copies of mandrake were bought at CompUSA?
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:4, Informative)
In India about 5-10% (probably closer to the latter figure by now) PCs are sold with linux pre-installed. Obviously, not all stick with linux. My guess is 2-3%.
Its the same situation in most of Asia. Linux PCs are reportedly selling like hotcakes in Malaysia. In China, it is even more extreme than in India because the number of people actually using linux is negligibly small.
The reason for this is that most home PC users in these countries use pirated software whereas OEMs still have to pay for Windows if they want to install it. The amount of wipe-out-linux-and-install-windows going on in Asia totally dwarfs the number of geeks in the world installing linux on their machines after paying the windows tax.
Slashdotters are living in the 1990s. The new reality is vastly different from what it used to be. The vast majority of linux users are non-geeks. There is no problem at all in getting linux PCs. The number of Linux PCs sold significantly overestimates atual usage.
The reason that linux usage continues to hover around 2% is no longer due to Microsofy bullying, but because Linux is still quite hard for non-geeks to use.
Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. It's because the pirates precieve that either
or
If you have the best Desktop [apple.com] in the business, it won't matter becuase of what that person preceives as important. For Everyday Joe that means either being a good sheep[1] or getting his pr0n, w4r3z, [idsoftware.com]
The other way around? (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many people buy PCs with Windows on them, and immediately format the disk(s) and install Linux?
Re:The other way around? (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you consider the stats from Google's zietgeist [google.com], it really can't be too many.
Re:The other way around? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The other way around? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a pretty poor metric, it goes by the user agent string. I can't say I know any linux user (or any nonIE user for that matter) who doesn't change their user agent string to be IE 6sp1 on windows. They do this for a simple reason, 99% of the pages that don't load in alternative browsers, magically do load if the browser claims it's IE.
Re:The other way around? (Score:2)
Actually most of the recent worms that have been used to mass mail have been NT/XP only.
Re:The other way around? (Score:2)
Re:The other way around? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many people that buy PC's even know that Linux is something that could replace Windows? Don't dismiss the number of Linux users out there that buy components instead of assembled PCs.
Re:The other way around? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The other way around? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The other way around? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats really not the only reason, or even the main one. They don't want the low quality components and poor performance (not to mention integrated hardware) that comes with buying from a Major brand.
Most component built systems yield higher performance and actually cost MORE than major brand systems. Better value for the dollar, but few are reducing their overall number of dollars spent, or have any in
Re:The other way around? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The other way around? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reasons are simple, most users aren't capable of installing and OS period. Most of the "computer savy" kids aren't able to install an OS either, they are considered savy because they can download and install Kazaa, download some music and burn it to a cd. This convinces their parents and family they are a computer whiz.
The other reason is that windows typically comes on a new computer. When you couple this with number one, you quickly realize that the knowledge required to find the data and transfer it from all the various applications one might run is far more complicated than installing the OS alone.
Remember, those who do have knowledge to do these things are typically techs and admins. At work they won't be pirating windows. Outside of work THEY might pirate windows for themselves, friends and family, and might mostly associate with techs, their friends, and family. This means that your typical tech/admin will see lots of pirated windows copies floating around.
Remember also that all the techs, all their friends, and their families probably add up to less than 1% of the total desktop market.
Re:The other way around? (Score:2)
In Thailand the government is promoting a low-cost PC program, the cheapest version has Linux (MS recently introduced a cheap version of XP to compete). It's common practice to take the Linux machine home and just install a pirated XP over the Linux install. Some stick to Linux though.
Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:3, Interesting)
The best hope for linux is in getting new users from the pool of non-users instead of from the pool of windiws users. Once people use windows, they believe for some reason that they will be unable to switch.
Re:Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:2)
Give up the drugs (Score:2)
I know... You can do a lot of that stuff with windows, too. I know this because I too am a (closeted) windows user. I am sitting at a (presently) windows2000 machine that has bore this same skin (my own version of "Beacon") for years now ala windowblinds. Yes, it makes it a bit slower but goddamn windows is ass-ugly without it!
My system is my TV se
Re:Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:3, Interesting)
Finicky? My Suse Linux 9.0 installed far faster than Windows 2000, autodetected all of my hardware, and set up my broadband connection without any intervention on my part - without needing a reboot once. In addition, I got a boatload of apps I'd otherwise have to pay for; and no matter what the Microsofties say for most people (text editing, spreadsheet, browsing, email) these apps are more than up to the job.
Li
Re:Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:2)
I would say most Linux users these days once used Windows as their primary OS but were then able to switch. Sure, the less technically inclinded portion of the population will not be able to do that, but I wouldn't recommend that they start out on Linux in the first place.
Re:Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:2)
Re:Point people seem to be ignoring (Score:3, Interesting)
The point where Linux is "harder" is when you have a somewhat experianced computer user who is already used to another system trying to use it for the first time. Such a user is not experianced enough to immediately see and deal with the differences, and yet experianced that he knows *exactly* how he would do what he wants on t
Prepare for lame statistics (Score:2)
Re:Prepare for lame statistics (Score:2)
Why? Because you kept failing? There's no such thing as IBM Linux
More seriously, statistics do not lie, people do.
Gartner? (Score:2)
Re:Gartner? (Score:2)
No, we can't, because the fucking Gartner link is to a PAY ONLY site: "This article/section can only be accessed by ComputerWire registered users". What was the point of that?
Re:Gartner? -- here's the text (Score:2)
Re:Gartner? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're a pet peeve of mine. It seems like what they do is interview CIO types about their opinions on various technologies and then turn that information into speculation about where the industry is going.
The result is a bunch of very credible sounding propoganda that reflects all the biases prevalent among their target audience: CIOs who need backing for their opinions. The CIOs naturally buy the reports and use them to pursuade other people in the company that the CIO's favourite pet project or technology is "industry best practices".
Gartner reports tell a lot about what people who worked in technology ten years ago (and have since moved to management) think. They consistently overlook trends that are bubbling under the surface, obvious practitioners, but not yet noticed by management.
If you want to know what your boss thinks about the industry, read Gartner. If you want to know about what's really happening, read the Usenet group that deals with the specific technology you're interested in.
Re:Gartner? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wish I could edit my own posts - just as after I sent this I found an interesting article by Tim O'Reilly [oreillynet.com]. He suggests using book sales to measure market trends.
I don't know if this will turn out to be accurate, but it's at least somewhat objective. A neat idea.
Think "prostitution". (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the "reports" and "studies" you'll see from Gartner are linked from vendor's websites. Vendors who paid for the report. So the vendors use those "reports" and "studies" as marketing materials.
I've only seen Gartner stuff used to justify a decision that has already been made. And, IMO, that's all they're good for.
Wasn't this the opposite argument we were making? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, really, what evidence do they have that hordes of people are buying machines with Linux pre-installed just to go through the pain of installing XP in order to save, what, $40?
Granted, a lot of machines shipped with Linux aren't running the version of Linux they shipped with, but I find their statement hard to believe.
Re:Wasn't this the opposite argument we were makin (Score:2)
Perhaps the vast quatities of boxen that Wal Mart [walmart.com] is shipping has something to do with it. I still don't believe for a second that these numbers are fair and unbiased, and I think their polling methods may be in error, but Wal-mart does ship a lot of computers to people who are very familiar with Windows, not Linux.
Re:Wasn't this the opposite argument we were makin (Score:2)
In order to avoid paying for windows twice, corporations that already own a ms windows site license choose to buy their new PCs with linux pre-installed. They choose linux over no os at all because MS has this silly little contractual requirement with all vendors licensed to ship ms-windows, the requirement is all machines must ship with *an* OS. The requirement used to be to explciitly ship with ms-windows, but that requirement was axed as one of the fe
Re:Excuse me (Score:5, Informative)
Now of course, there are some machines where a linux install is a REAL pain, but most on "desktop" hardware sail right along.
Re:Excuse me (Score:3, Interesting)
Only 8 or 9? I think when I used to run Win98 it was something like:
1. Install Win98
2. reboot
3. install driver
4. repeat steps 2 and 3 about 10 times
5. windows spectacularly crashes after installing a particular driver, totally refuses to boot even after removing that driver again
6. Wipe and reinstall Win98
7. reboot
8. install drivers in a different order
9. rep
Re:Excuse me (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me (Score:2)
Aren't anecdotes fun?
Re:Excuse me (Score:3, Interesting)
NX support? That is soooo *LAST* month! (Score:4, Informative)
Gammage also stated that until Linux is shown to support the NX (No eXecute) security technology supported in Microsoft Corp's forthcoming Windows XP Service Pack 2, it will be seen as potentially deficient to Windows. However, Red Hat released a patch for the Linux kernel to support NX in June that has the full blessing of Linux creator Linus Torvalds.
Yeah, right. Read 'em and weep. [kerneltrap.org]
Re:NX support? That is soooo *LAST* month! (Score:4, Insightful)
NX Bit?!?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NX Bit?!?? (Score:2)
Anyone with any knowledge of OS security will know that Windows automatically loses in the competition, because various OS components (Internet Explorer/ActiveX) allow bypassing of normal privilege isolation. Windows tends to fall apart on its own under security stressors, while UNIX holds its permission isolations -- assuming both are kept patched up to date, even.
Re:NX Bit?!?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that I'm not arguing by talking about insecure/vulnerable libraries, like MS crypto or RPC which has led to dozens of major exploits. Equivalent vulnerabilities in portmapper or OpenSSL would lead to similar problems on UNIX. Rather I'm talking about fundamental design flaws that allow privilege leakage -- (1) IE integration (a huge one), (2) Win32 API messaging,
3.5% by 2008 (Score:4, Interesting)
Bah! Gartner's fabricated estimate is totally unnecessary for this. Actual usage measurements, like the Google Zeitgeist [google.com] are more telling. Linux has never broken 1% and as a desktop system I really wouldn't count on it passing the Mac any year soon.
Re:3.5% by 2008 (Score:3)
When Gartner makes up anti-Linux stats the slashdot crowd screams to high heaven, now that they have made up some pro-Linux stats everyone is celebrating.
Problem with Google Zeitgeist (Score:2)
Google only uses cookies, as far as I know, to store my preferences. While that's good for security and privacy reasons, its bad for Zeitgeist.
Its not unreasonable to think that 'power' web surfers probably use Google more than most computer users, on the whole. Who are power users? Are they Mac users? Lin
Unsupervised Linux Servers Browsing the Web? (Score:3, Funny)
-Hope
I'm wondering about that other 5% (Score:3, Interesting)
Win95 1%
Win98 16%
WinME 3%
WinNT 2%
Win2000 18%
WinXP 51% (that's a lot of XP)
Mac 3%
Linux 1%
Other 5% (What are these OS's?)
Really, aside from all the Windows versions listed and the "Mac" category, what other OS's are out there? There must be at least 6 of them with marketshare just below Linux's. But I don't know what they are. Any ideas?
Not that I don't trust Google's numbers (I'm cynical) but that 51% looks awful high too. At work we have
Re:3.5% by 2008 (Score:3, Informative)
I can change it, but how many other browsers falsely identify themselves for the sake of extra security against the internet?
Re:3.5% by 2008 (Score:3, Insightful)
It is pretty easy to make a site completely standards compliant and send it identical html. However to make it work well IE needs to get a different stylesheet from the standards compliant browsers which is basically ev
I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but the two are not compatible. Once your focus becomes "market share" (shouldn't that be "market selfish"?) then you start in with the competition and copyrighting and everything that goes with it [sco.com].
It would be a shame to see the creativity and individualism that spurred the Linux revolution denatured and dilluted, like so many other initally promising social trends, by the invisible hand of the "almighty greenback".
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Personally, my focus is not market share - the only people talking about market share are Gartner, and the wording itself makes me wonder if they even considered the plethora of free downloads and copies going on in the Linux scene.
As others have pointed out, the NX thing is a red he
Add to it... (Score:2)
My own "statistics" says other (Score:3, Interesting)
That's 100% of current userbase over past 10 years now. And 6 of the 12 are actually desktops. That's 100% of my desktops running Linux.
Well, within above I do not count Linux replaced a toy WinCE in iPaq PDA, gaining a desktop capability in my pocket too.
Re:10 years... (Score:3, Funny)
Find Other Benchmarks (Score:2)
Like seeing a positive reference to OS/2 in a Windows magazine or reading how there are many qualities Microsoft should copy from Mac OS X in PC err eWeek, it really isn't a major or even minor coup when a firm that has completely been lodged in the cleft of Windowlingus for years starts including references
Is Linux PPC and YellowDog for Macs Included? (Score:2)
Like nailing jello to the wall (Score:5, Interesting)
We all "know" MS has 90-95% of the market. The numbers shipped, the dollar amounts, all point to this "fact". Same with the others.
Linux doesn't come close. From a dollar perspective, most distros pale compared to the others. From a "shipped" point of view, well, who counts little Linux shops in their numbers? This is about Dell and the big folks. And there is the dualboot/wipe issue.
So, why do I laugh? Because, using these statistics, nobody will realize how many people actually use Linux until it's right in their faces. In other words, theoretically, MS could still ship 90-95% of the market, only to turn around one day, and find out that only 10-20% of users actually use Windows (with a few more using it occasionally).
So, realisically, the better way of measuring this would be to measure the "other" sales related to Windows. Antivirus software wouldn't count, neither would Office software, or games. (These are necessities for dual booters, or things that might only be available for one OS.)
My pick would be the "cheapy" software that people tend to buy for their computers. The productivity stuff, or "make your computer easier to use" kind of stuff. Better yet, if you want a long term guage, try the "educational" aisle.
In other words, to guage an OS's success, compare it's market. Find something unusual about that OS, something that no other can share, and use that as a guage. Exact numbers don't matter, but trends can point out a lot.
If money/users seem to be disappearing from these markets, yet the hardware folks are actually doing pretty well, you might want to bump up your Linux/OSS numbers a little.
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2, Insightful)
No it's not (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No it's not (Score:2)
Re:No it's not (Score:3, Insightful)
With material goods, theft can be a factor in price because a raise in price is needed to offset the theft of goods, which is not only a lost sale, which means little, but a loss of raw material that was paid for by the producer. There are no raw materials to ethereal 0s and 1s.
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:4, Insightful)
And that makes you spend more maintenance costs and troubleshooting time than using Linux.
I'm so delighted to be able to say this:
Windows XP is only free if your time is worth nothing.
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that's true at all. Your average Joe user can use XP, if the computer manufacturer or a local geek installed it for them.
Present average Joe user with a computer with an unformatted hard disk, and the Windows and Linux install media, and he'll get exactly nowhere with either one.
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2)
j/k.
(it's true though).
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2, Funny)
That's simple, solitaire isn't included in many linux distros.
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2)
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2)
Try THAT with Windows
Re:WindowsXP is free... (Score:2, Interesting)
Have you ever installed cygwin on an XP box? It has a nice little shell.
I don't believe that terminal is always faster either. I generally find a GUI file manager a much easier way to select, group and move specific mp3s around my hdd. Each to
Proof that Linux makes one more effecient: (Score:2)
Re:Why do you care? (Score:3, Interesting)