I could cae less about MSBS. We dumped MS in favor of linux. You will not see that in any statistics you take. Most people I know are setting up thee own servers instead of overpaying for a MS Sanctioned linux vendor. Goodbye Microsoft.

I could cae less about MSBS. We dumped MS in favor of linux. You will not see that in any statistics you take. Most people I know are setting up thee own servers instead of overpaying for a MS Sanctioned linux vendor. Goodbye Microsoft.

I could cae less about MSBS. We dumped MS in favor of linux. You will not see that in any statistics you take. Most people I know are setting up thee own servers instead of overpaying for a MS Sanctioned linux vendor. Goodbye Microsoft.

@Joe:

How can you count something you can see or know exist.

You must count VMware ESX, Xen and KVM success as Linux servers gains. ie. Amazon uses Xen for it's Elastic Compute Cloud. Hosting farms uses Linux and add instances everyday.

Hence, you can't count Linux my servers but by INSTANCES.

Heck, even Microsoft run instances of Linux using ESX and Big Ip device. go figure...

correction:
How can you count something you can't see or know exist.

What part of this statement don't you understand?

"There are various other things that are also happening in the market, such as the use of Linux on older machines, virtualization and Linux in appliances," he said. "So, the software side doesn't necessarily track with the hardware side for Linux. Our understanding is that even IDC continues to see growth in the Linux software business—both in terms of paid and unpaid Linux—and Novell's Linux business is growing, regardless of the broader trend."

How are they counting Linux installations, exactly? Are they only counting copies shipped with machines, or support licences bought from Red Hat, or what? Because those counts are going to underestimate the figures.

For instance, all my major clients regularly buy server machines with no OS, on which we proceed to install the Linux distro of our choice. How would IDC account for a situation like that?

It's not only Microsoft's business model is dated. But also their server infrastructure model. CIO in the know will get expert tips and advice for consolidating their underutilized x86 servers.

I've enjoyed reading joe's articles more the past 2 weeks, than the previous 2 years combined. Kudos Joe, for ANALYZING the market. Its VERY compelling reading, and I hope it continues.

That Linux is growing at the expense of Unix and not Windows is something that many analyst have reported in the past. I have actually pointed out this, a couple of months ago, as an answer to some Linux supporters that were clamming Linux growth against Windows Server. My post was based on what I see happening on the market.It seems that numbers backup this intuition. In the reasons of slowed growth for Linux, i would also add that some business may have started to realize that Linux isn't cheap.
BTW, IIS still continued to gain share over Apache last month.

You can listen to the weatherman or you can go out side and feel the temperature for yourself. The temperature in your neck of the woods is not the same in my neck of the woods. I'm out side in the elements installing Linux Servers and VMs like I40 going West. I can only judge from my on the ground experience not some arm chair analysis or weather(wo)man.

If the analysis can't tell you how many Linux Desktop exist, how can they tell you how many Linux server/VMs exist.

The industry has left Microsoft and those arm chair analysis grabbing at low hanging fruits.

@evan:
FYI: All websites that matters run 'Linux'.

www.microsoft-watch.com Site Report April 2002 The Dog House Linux

download.microsoft.com Site Report August 1999 ADSL endpoints NAT conections only Linux

search.microsoft.com Site Report January 1997 ADSL endpoints NAT conections only Linux

nOneXnOne,
Sites that matter run SSL and do financial transactions over the internet. One can claim that fortune 500 companies also matter, and not one page web sites, which usually run linux or other free bsd base server. So the sites that you mentioned are not the ones that "matter". Windows has the lead in both SSL web servers (arguably) and Fortune 500 companies.

There seems to be an editorial error in these sentences. They seem to contradict themselves:

"But to be certain, I'll restate what's going on: Linux isn't gaining as much share against Unix.

For all the talk about the Linux threat to Windows Server, the real loser is Unix. Linux has largely gained share at Unix's expense...."

@evan:

Whatever you say.

It's obvious you're in a basement somewhere. Using Vista or XP.

Call your local ISP maybe they can give you some insight, I can't help you.

From personal experience:

Migrated 30+ systems from Windows to Linux "because its more stable" (customer quote, not mine). Haven't had to migrate the other way (at least not so far). :-)

100s of systems going in, but we have a site support agreement. The hardware gets shipped bare-bones, we decide what flavor Linux goes on, and once per quarter we update our support agreement/maintenance contract.

I work in a multi-flavor UNIX environment (HP-UX/Solaris/RH Linux/SuSE Linux) and of course we have VMWare running Windows and Linux.

By far the fastest growing area is... Linux!

I have to go with n0neXn0ne on this one.

n0neXn0ne, your arrogance is exactly whats wrong with your "movement". Linux is TOO-OFTEN administered by folks just like you... hence the building decline in market share.

Perhaps you dont realize it, but your attitude is as contrary to BUSINESS as your likely stale basement smell.

uhura Says:
"your arrogance is exactly whats wrong with your "movement"... attitude is as contrary to BUSINESS..."

@uhura:
The arrogance is a character defect. I'm working on it. ;-)

I DO NOT speak for any group hence, I'm not a CABAL.

@to_whom_it_concern:
**These are my opinions only and in no way are they meant to offend anyone. If for any reason you feel the need to contact me in any way regarding these posts, especially for inappropriate wording or a perceived derogatory statement, please feel free to contact me. I am all over the Internet and you can find me there.**

Ubuntu: Just how popular is it?

http://www.starryhope.com/linux/ubuntu/2007/ubuntu-just-how-popular-is-it/

Quote; "According to Canonical’s official press release for Gutsy Gibbon, Ubuntu has a “strong and growing user base of over 6 million people.” Where Canonical got this number is not clear, and they have provided no evidence to back up this claim. Nobody really knows how many people are using Ubuntu, but we found some interesting statistics online that show Ubuntu’s popularity is growing. From these statistics, it looks like Ubuntu has become far more popular than any other Linux distribution."
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I think the M$ corporation and their lacky's (shills) just don't get it. Its not so much about a "movement," as it is about people wanting free stable software, that dosen't lock them in, phone home and spy on them, or cost them their firstborn.

Those ubuntu numbers are counted threw the update servers and the time servers.

Yes they could be low if people have altered there update location and there time server update location.

The count is not high. Samba 4 is required for Linux to compete against windows 2003 and 2008. Note x86 might disappear out of low end servers. Linux device market is doing well. NAS servers doing ADS. This will make money sense. Reason. No more CALS for the server. MS Windows file servers most likely become MS market. Ie Linux lead MS second.

Counting the X86 market alone is missing a major problem.

Now MS might need to change there licenses to prevent this.

The M$BS is part of the M$ FUD campaign. What else is new? It's not much different from their silly TCO studies.

hey, even I've got a Linux server in an office that won't show up on any survey. And some workstations with Linux and Openoffice too. No one's counting them.

BBC admits massive underestimate of Linux users

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/135591/bbc-admits-massive-underestimate-of-linux-users.html

Quote from the link: "The BBC has backtracked on claims that it has only hundreds of Linux users accessing its website.

Last month, the BBC's director of BBC Future Media and Technology, Ashley Highfield, told a magazine that just 400-600 Linux users visited the BBC sites every week. Now, Highfield claims on his blog that the figure could be as high as 97,600.

The initial figures caused disbelief in the Linux community, prompting the creation of a petition to gauge the true number of Linux users. This petition had over 2,000 signatures at the time of writing."
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Figures on Linux adoption and Linux server adoption can be fudged in many ways. Also, its a very hard thing to get an accurate count on to start with. And most of the sites that do report web hit stats, maybe MS partners. Get the idea?