Linux Market Share (according to Microsoft)
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| GeneS Jul 10, 2009 11:33 AM EDT |
Here is "the man's" explanation of Linux market share, it included a pie chart showing Apple at 12% and Linux at 14%. Below is an excerpt of his speech regarding the Market Share pie chart: * Ballmer: Linux Bigger Competitor than Apple posted by Thom Holwerda on Wed 25th Feb 2009 10:17 UTC IconMicrosoft's CEO Steve Ballmer had some interesting things to say yesterday about which companies Microsoft sees as its competitors in the client operating system space. You'd think Apple was their number one competitor - and you'd be wrong. Microsoft sees two other competitors as their primary adversaries. During a speech for investors, Steve Ballmer showed the following slide to his audience: As you can see, Microsoft sees piracy as its biggest competitor. "Number two market share goes to Windows pirated, or unlicensed," Balmer said, "That's a competitor that's tough to beat, they've got a good price and a heck of a product, but we're working on it." This isn't exactly new information, but it's interesting to see it spelled out so clearly. Much more interesting is Microsoft's idea of Linux and Apple, According to Microsoft, Linux is a bigger threat to the company than Apple, placing Linux above Apple in the marketshare figure pie chart thing. "Linux, you could see on the slide, and Apple has certainly increased its share somewhat," Ballmer said. |
| gus3 Jul 10, 2009 12:36 PM EDT |
Like I said on the "Oooh lookee here" thread, Linux's market share is whatever Microsoft needs it to be at the moment. If they're talking to customers, Linux has just a tiny sliver of the market share, to "prove" how worthless it is. If they're talking to government regulators, Linux magically grows by ~10x, to "prove" how much competition they get from it. |
| softwarejanitor Jul 10, 2009 12:38 PM EDT |
@gus Lies, damned lies and statistics... who was it who said that? Samuel Clemmons... |
| tuxchick Jul 10, 2009 12:39 PM EDT |
Ballmer once said "Linux has 60% on servers and Windows has 40%". So yeah, don't look to SteveB for any kind of intellectual rigor. |
| softwarejanitor Jul 10, 2009 1:57 PM EDT |
@tuxchick Well, if he was talking about web servers, that is not that far from wrong according to the Netcraft numbers. |
| tracyanne Jul 10, 2009 6:12 PM EDT |
I'd tend to believe that Microsoft figure of around 14%, but nly because it's close, actually higher, than my own, and several other wet finger in the air guestimates. I suspect that in this case they are being somewhat honest, simply out of necessity. On the other hand real or imagined, that figure, with Microsoft's backing to it, is very useful to me. |
| chalbersma Jul 10, 2009 10:46 PM EDT |
Is that a combined server and desktop figure? because i could believe 14ish percent as a combined server and desktop os installation number. |
| tracyanne Jul 11, 2009 1:16 AM EDT |
Microsoft's figures were related to desktop usage. Had they been about Server usage you would have seen a lot of other *nix OSs. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 11, 2009 3:07 AM EDT |
GeneS: Got a link to the original story please? |
| GeneS Jul 11, 2009 3:10 PM EDT |
@Sander_Marechal re: link to original story http://www.osnews.com/thread?350612 |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 11, 2009 6:58 PM EDT |
Thanks. I followed the links back to this page, but I can't find the "Linux at 14%" that you quoted: http://blogs.eweek.com/applewatch/content/macbook/microsoft_... |
| tracyanne Jul 11, 2009 7:13 PM EDT |
No, I can't either, I've done some fairly extensive searching. and everything seems to lead back to that graph. given the size of the Apple slice and the quoted market share for Apple, it's a reasonable guestimate (there we go again) when you compare the size of the Linux slice. But hard figures it's not. |
| GeneS Jul 12, 2009 10:32 AM EDT |
@Sander & Tracyanne: Yes, it was based on my extrapolating on the basis of Apple at 12% ... but then it is probably more accurate than Microsoft's estimate of the pie slice attributable to "Illegal copies of Windows" in circulation. My apology for not mentioning this earlier in the discussion. |
| helios Jul 12, 2009 9:44 PM EDT |
But does it matter? If Microsoft said it, then that is the number that will be printed, repeated and repeated again until they retract it or publish another survey. The everyday desktop user doesn't even know this discussion exists...it's just red meat for us to fight over. h |
| tracyanne Jul 12, 2009 10:10 PM EDT |
From my point of view, if I have a graph that shows Apple's OS and Linux as level pegging at say 12%, I can use that to hopefully convince a suppliers of hardware that they need to better support Linux. That way i can help make microsoft's prophecy self fulfilling. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 13, 2009 2:15 AM EDT |
@helios: My point is that Microsoft didn't say it. GeneS said it, but looking at the chart itself (look at the link in my previous post) I see Apple at 3-4% and Linux at 4-5%. Sure, that's a lot more than most "analyst" give Linux, but a far cry from 14%. We also have no idea what that figure represents as the chart doesn't say. Total install base? 2008 install base? Sales? And if so, which quarter or year? |
| softwarejanitor Jul 13, 2009 11:30 AM EDT |
One of the things that is probably misleading about using a pie chart for OS usage is it doesn't show that the total is more than 100%. By that I mean a lot of people use multiple OSes. Many people own more than one computer, use emulation/virtualization, dual boot or some combination of those. So even if non-Microsoft OSes have 14-25% market share it doesn't mean that Microsoft still doesn't have the 90+% market share that the analysts claim, it just means that the total OS market size is 104-115% of the number of users. |
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