Scott Nudds wrote:
> 0Robert Newson wrote:
> > ...just shows how stupid it is to use cost
> > figures and thus share of the [sales] market instead of actual numbers
> > of installations.
>
> As you say, cost of installation is zero and thus if cost of
> installation was being compared the market share for linux would be 0%
> not .2%.
Care to provide a link to this reference?
Microsoft has boldly claimed that Linux is now only SOLD on .2% of the
machines sold by OEMs such as HP, Dell, Lennovo, Gateway, Sony, and
Toshiba. This shows how well Microsoft has complied with the DOJ
settlement. Allegations have been raised, including some red flags
raised by the OEMs themselves, but the Bush Administration seems quite
willing to look the other way on the major issues, while focusing on a
nearly insignificant issue of server protocols, which could be resolved
by simply ordering Microsoft to adhere precisely to the available
published standards, rather than trying to get Microsoft to pubilish
what it considers to be extremely confidential information.
> Linux holds .2% of the market as counted by the number of installations.
http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2005/11/osdl_desktop_li_1.html
At present, Linux has a 2.5 percent share of the desktop operating
system market based on shipments, according to IDC,
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
First, let's look at the available market share figures. According to
the June 2000 IDC survey of 1999 licenses for client machines,
GNU/Linux had 80% as many client shipments in 1999 as Apple's MacOS
(5.0% for Mac OS, 4.1% for GNU/Linux). More recent figures in 2002
suggest that GNU/Linux has 1.7% of the client OS market.
http://linux.sys-con.com/read/32648.htm
<quote>
Windows market share is usually estimated by the units of Windows
Microsoft claims to have shipped. This figure is already skewed,
because it includes every unsold box of Windows XP sitting on shelves
at Best Buy or Circuit City. More significant, however, is the fact
that it includes every PC with a pre-installed version of Windows.
Linux market share, on the other hand, is usually estimated based on
surveys, number of commercial boxes sold and the number of downloads.
</quote>
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Shows Linux at at least 3.5%
Keep in mind that most Linux browsers don't report themselves as
"Linux" while most Mac and Windows browsers do report themselves as
Windows or Mac.
Squid often appears in the Other catagory even though it's a cache for
Linux.
> Now if market share were counted by the number of times installed,
> Linux would be at 500% or so, for as we all know the primary application
> of Linux is to istall the OS. It is suitable for nothing else.
Most WinTrolls would say that.
Linux has many excellent applications, most quite competitive with
Microsoft equivalents, and many commercial Linux applications are far
better.
Linux is getting much easier to install, but WinTrolls still manage to
find some "fire-sale bargain" machines that are "Linux Hostile" and
love to report their experiences with them.
VMWare Player has captured a huge market, and virtualization has become
the next big trend in desktop computing - primarily as a launching pad
for Linux on Desktop.
Broadband download speeds of up to 8 megabits per second have made it
possible to download Linux DVDs in less than 2 hours, and Linux
Live-CDs in less than 30 minutes.
Novell and Linspire are reporting healthy sales and substantial growth.
Still, Microsoft continues to lock Linux out of the OEM market, even
though Linux performs better on their top-of-the-line machines.
OEMs are reporting the highest profits in 3 years, mostly due to the
higher profit margins on Linux-Ready machines.
OEMs are still selling the machines with Windows, but are providing
media kits to facilitate reinstallation of Windows as a client to
Linux.
> Robert Newson wrote:
> > If Linux usage is so small why is MS worrying so much about it?
>
> MS stopped worrying about Linux 5 years ago. You might remember -
> around the time they needed a threat to use to argue that the Microsoft
> company should not be broken up.
At those hearings, they testified that Linux had 14% of the desktop
market (US), and 17% (EU). This was testimony under oath. The
prosecutors did not challenge those numbers because they knew that
Microsoft could back them up (Yahoo numbers indicate similar numbers).
Microsoft's surveys use cookies from registered users using
subscription sites such as Expedia, CarPoint, MSNBC, CNBC, and
Microsoft web sites, all of which assign long-term cookies to each
browser that accepts cookies. This is the most accurate way to count,
because numbers are not skewed by DHCP, NAT firewalls, or
virtualization. If a user uses Linux and Windows on the same machine,
this survey technique can capture that.
Microsoft can also detect Kommander "Masquerades", Linux machines
posing as Windows machines to get past hostile web sites. Linux users
often make minor deviations in the signatures (spacing, punctuation,
and extra characters). Most surveys ignore these, and count "close
enough" as Windows. Microsoft knows better.
IDC predicted that Linux would reach 20% of the market by 2008. IDC is
notoriously conservative with their predictions.
> Had Linux not existed it is most probable that Microsoft would now be
> several different companies competing in a more competitive market.
You might be right. Unfortunately, the original case was based on the
premise that if the DOJ could prove a "pattern of abuse" using 25
witnesses, that the remedy would address that pattern of abuse. In the
settlement, only the specific acts, for which evidence in the form of
testimony was presented, were addressed. Judge Kollar-Kotelly wanted
to open the door for a rash of individual lawsuits, hoping to
accomplish cooperation through attrition. Instead, Microsoft settled
with the individual states with green stamps (Microsoft indows license
stickers for the school computers - which were already licensed for
Windows but were about to be converted to Linux) instead of cash.
Quite simply, the "Settlements" actually perpetuated the monopoly
control even further, rather than opening up the market to true
competition.
> But Unix - perpetual fuckup it is - effectively stopped the pending
> Microsoft breakup.
This is probably more true than you think. Novell had UNIX and was
ready to release a Unix workstation at a time when Microsoft was
extremely vulnerable (Windows NT 3.1 release was a flop, Chicago was
delayed, and users were getting really sick of Windows 3.1/3.11).
Microsoft stopped it just in time, forcing the board to agree to
terminate the Workstation program or Microsoft would market NT as a
server. Novell's board didn't have time to do the research, or they
would have known that NT was already targeted at the server market.
Noorda had done the research, which is why he was going for a UnixWare
workstation.
Caldera bit off more than they could chew when they tried to swallow
the SCO service organization. The new glut of outstanding shares made
it possible for agents working on behalf of Microsoft to wrest control
of the company from founder Ransom Love, turn control over to Darryl
McBride, purchase the rights to UNIX, give those rights to Microsoft
for about $7 million, and grant Microsoft full access to the UNIX
market (SFU) if needed.
Microsoft arranged funding for the SCO lawsuit against IBM, brokering a
bail-out from Bay Star capitol.
> Unix/Linsux has always been it's own worst enemy.
Unix has certainly been it's own worst enemy.
BSD was becoming widely accepted as early as 1983, and yet AT&T tried
to market a crippled version to BSD customers. They worked out a deal
with BSD to get their code, but locked BSD into a "floor price"
agreement which protected the Minicomputer market from low-cost PC
based servers.
On repeated occaisions, Sun prematurely announced that they would have
exclusive control, along with AT&T, over UNIX. This alienated
competitor OEMs such as IBM, HP, Dec, and SCO. OSF was formed to
counter the threat of Sun's monopoly of UNIX.
When developers tried to create low-cost BSD workstations, AT&T tried
to prevent this, using the floor price agreement. Federal courts and
settlements freed the BSD code, but BSD went "fork happy". FreeBSD,
OpenBSD, NetBSD,... all badmouthing each other.
Linux, on the other hand, managed the forking and worked to maintain
consistent standards for the foundation, allowing distributors to
establish market premiums in the form of applications bundled with the
core Linux distributions. The core platform was consistent, while the
packaging tools, installation tools, and graphical administration
interfaces were left to the distributors.
Even Mac found that fighting open source and open standards was a waste
of resources and was actually hurting their market. When they released
full support for the full standards, their market share increased, now
on a par with Linux.
If Mac market share is 12% last quarter, and Linux aftermarket installs
reached the equivalent of 12% last quarter, then Microsoft is down to
around 70% of the market in terms of final market deployment, yet they
still maintain the monopoly power to force OEMs to exclude Linux, even
the mention of Linux in their advertizing and marketing offerings. For
example, OEMs can't even put "Linux Ready" on their advertizing and
promotional materials, because Microsoft must approve such ads, and
consistently rejects them.
There is not a clause in the contract that says "though shalt not
mention Linux in ads containing the microsoft ads", but there is a
consistent pattern of enforcement, in which ads which contain mention
of Linux are rejected. Furthermore, public announcements of machines
that are "Linux Ready" are quickly followed by retractions.
Lennovo announces that it will sell T60p machines with Linux, then 48
hours later retracts, offering to support Linux, then leaves users to
fend for themselves. At least you know that a T60p is "Linux ready".
Of course, so are most T40s, T60s, Z60s, and R50s.
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