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Tea leaves and Linux market share
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CommentsI was - just as the story lead suggested - a bit slackjawed over a statistic from Gartner Dataquest cited in a recent <SLASH HREF="//linux.com/relocate.pl?id=5fa2e1417ac89d0e01aa563c6d4b7cc3" ID="149c46a6b9ba055454bdda7f76ec989c" TITLE="http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22080.html" TYPE="LINK">news story.</SLASH> The statistic causing that reaction was that the Linux server market share of U.S. sales had grown 90% in the 4th quarter of 2002 over the same quarter in 2001. Try as I might, I could not make that statistic fit with data from IDC.
IDC data, for example, weighs in with Linux server revenue in the first quarter of 2003 at $583 million, an increase of 35 percent over the same quarter in 2002. I am not saying IDC is right and Gartner wrong, I am only pointing out that they are different.
Tracking Linux market share is a black art, especially given the way that legally multiple Linux installations can spring from a single purchased copy, or from no purchased copy at all.
IDC and Gartner Dataquest are two of the most often cited sources of market share statistics. But they don't produce the data in exactly the same ways. It's sort of like buying a major appliance from Crazy Ed that comes with a guarantee that you won't find it available for a better price anywhere else. Crazy Ed's confidence in that guarantee comes not from their own low price, but from the fact that the appliance manufacturer has provided them unique model numbers that simply won't be found for sale anywhere else.
Prior to 2002, IDC tracked market share on factory shipments of server platforms based on the number of servers shipped. That does seem a logical approach. But starting in Q1 of 2002, they began to track market share based on revenue rather than units.
Some in the Linux community feel that was done to make Windows look better since counting by cost instead of server gives Microsoft a three-to-one advantage over the upstart Linux. But the Unix segment is actually the big winner when counting market share by dollars: the Unix share jumped from just under 12% in 2001 (counted by units) to over 50% in 2002 (counted by dollars). This leap comes while the actual sales revenue from Unix fell almost 13%. As economists might say, go figure.
Another favorite measuring stick of market share is the long-running Netcraft survey of web servers on the Internet. Checking the latest stats from Netcraft shows Microsft losing approximately 10 percent of the web server market over the past year while Apache gained about 10 percent. Don't forget that this metric is only concerned with the web server, not the underlying OS.
The Netcraft survey has not been without its own share of controversy over the way servers are counted: by domain name rather than physical machine.
The bottom line is that it is difficult to be precise about market share. It's guesswork even before the additional complexities of counting open source usage is factored into the mix. But whether you believe the Gartner Dataquest claim of 90% growth or not, you can be sure that the Linux share of server market share is both significant and growing. That's one thing everyone agrees on.
Joe Barr has been writing about technology for 10 years, and about Linux for five. His work has appeared in IBM Personal Systems Journal, LinuxGazette, LinuxWorld, Newsforge, phrack, SecurityFocus, and VARLinux.org. He is the founder of The Dweebspeak Primer, the official newsletter of the Linux Liberation Army.
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Since software is a high fixed cost (up-front costs associated with implementation and maintenance) and low marginal cost (the cost of stamping another CD and printing some more docs) business, often times a few percentage points can make a big difference.
If I go into a local retailer and ask if something is compatible with Linux, they may not be sure -- but they no longer ask what Linux is.
Many online e-tailers even list Linux compatibility on equipment now, and I find myself doing business with those regularly.
The situation has changed very dramatically in the last two years. Whatever numbers are being used for projections are too low. Way too low.
By the time IDC and Gartner figure out how to count market share (and personally, I don't think they ever will), no one will believe the numbers.
I agree wholeheartedly. Saying that I use Linux used to raise eyebrows<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... now people just want to know how it stacks up against Windows and what version I would recommend for a newcomer (to Linux). Oh<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and where they can buy a copy. I tell them which local retailers carry it.
Lots and LOTS of people have simply "had it" with Windows and Linux is the only game in town that will run on the hardware they already own.
That part is important. They already bought a computer. It is going to lose its copy of Windows and gain a copy of Linux. No one anywhere is going to subtract 1 from the Windows column and add 1 to the Linux column<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... but that's what happened.
I am convinced that Windows is way over-counted and Linux is equally under-counted.
(Okay<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... I know *BSD will also run on x86<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... but the people doing the asking don't know *BSD exists and don't care to spend the big bucks needed for a Mac to run OS-X. That makes Linux the only game in town.)
I also patronize companies that list Linux compatibility. I'm getting ready to buy a HP 3-1 printer / fax / copier this week because of the penguin logo on the outside of the box.
I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and have the empty hardware and software boxes to prove it. For me, no matter how low the price, hardware that won't work with Linux is just money wasted.
It cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be bargained with... And it certainly will never stop
until it has become the universal standard with which the open PC, devices and internet platforms operate with. That's where it is headed. That's where it will go.
Microsoft as a company will someday embrace Linux.
Their business will change but they will survive well enough but only as part of the new world. They are fighting a loosing war.
There is absolutely nothing they can do to stop it. Leagally or illeagally. They will change.
They will change soon.
The computing world is rapidly changing to an open system.
It must be...
I'd say MS is up to stage 3 (and didn't skip steps 1 and 2) -- and their failure certainly is looking like an inevitability.
Truthfully, the only loser will be MS. Everyone who uses, sells, or otherwise deals with computing will benefit.
I'm also personally of the opinion that this will greatly improve the state of the computer industry.
So, hurrah!
I presume this to mean that IDc modified their "revenue only" based market analysis methodology to somehow accomodate or include Linux based systems whose installation garnered little/no revenue.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-236732.html?legacy=<nobr>c<wbr></nobr> net
Notice this paragraph:
About 1.35 million copies of Linux were sold in 1999, which is 25 percent of the 5.4 million total copies of operating system software, according to preliminary data from market research firm International Data Corp. Linux shipments surpassed that of tried-and-true operating systems Novell Netware and all types of Unix in 1999. Nearly twice as many copies of Linux shipped last year than in 1998, and it grew at roughly four times the rate of the server OS market as a whole.
That is the way IDC used to track server software sales: by the unit, not by dollar. Nowadays it is based purely on revenue.
See ya,
Joe Barr
The content of the article you cited is from a conversation between a reporter and Dan Kusnetzky who is the "Vice President of IDC's System Software research, responsible for research and analysis on the worldwide market for operating environments"
(http://www.idc.com/en_US/viewAnalystResearch.jht<nobr>m<wbr></nobr> l?containerId=PRF000199)
Dan is quite capable of giving estimates of what market share means in terms of units shipped but that is not what IDC bases their market analyses on. Dan is far too smart to let a methodology prevent him from correctly reflecting the reality of the market.
Because of Linux, Dan had to change the standard "revenue only" methodology as he indicates here in this interview that you can see on slashdot from June of 2001.
(http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01<nobr>/<wbr></nobr> 06/21/154203&mode=thread&tid=163)
Its darned difficult to analyze a market share by revenue only when one of the players is available for free and allows infinite numbers of copies to be made from any copy.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-) On the other hand, since a "market size" is defined as the amount of revenue it generates, you have to find a way to relate units shipped to some kind of revenue.
And with statistics you can always remember the golden rule:
Lie, Big Lie, Statistics
It's more or less accurate if you don't analyze the source of data.
90%
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on August 18, 2003 11:47 PMOver the past year I have noticed an increase in Linux related traffic in various newsgroups, mailing lists, and websites. Additionally, my friends and family now know about it (and some even use it).
The real point is that Linux server and workstation deployment is clearly up. Who cares it it's 1% or 100%.
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