Bonum Certa Men Certa

GNU/Linux Market Share: Why Gartner and IDC Must be Ignored

[reposted from my personal blog]

“Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux...”

--Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO (September 2008)



CONTRARY to figures that account only for shipped volume and revenue (IDC), the installed base of GNU/Linux servers is very high. This is not to be confused with "market share", whose definition gets changed so as to serve the vanity of companies which directly or indirectly fund such market surveys. There is a lot of selective research and cherry-picking of methodologies.



GNU/Linux is very commonplace on servers. Virtualisation requires those servers to communicate between and within one another, either through open standards or 'interoperability', which is typically a two-way bridge. Microsoft is fiddling with companies like XenSource (now absorbed by Citrix) and VMware (now run by former Softies) to interfere.

In order to understand how GNU/Linux is doing against Windows on the server, a market survey would be required which is global. It is harder and more expensive to conduct a survey based on actual deployments (global in particular), as opposed to assembling and aggregating numbers of shipments from market leaders.

“In order to understand how GNU/Linux is doing against Windows on the server, a market survey would be required which is global.”One indicator of the success of Linux on the server is internal intelligence conducted and/or used by Microsoft. The company calls this -- albeit just internally -- "Linux heat map" (we have a copy of a court exhibit from Comes vs Microsoft [PDF]). Publicly, realisation of the GNU/Linux threat to Microsoft can be arrived at by interpreting the company's rhetoric and actions, such as threats of litigation, secret deals with Fortune 500 companies that pay Microsoft for their use of GNU/Linux (this is scarcely reported in the press and the companies refuse to identify themselves), and also disinformation initiatives such as "Get the Facts" and "Linux Personas" (defunct just days after debut).

GNOME server FSInternal documents which were revealed in the Comes vs Microsoft case not only reveal figures about market share in several areas. They also show the company's executives running frantic about what they called "Linux infestation". They said they were not on a path to win against "Linux", so they tried to manipulate Dell into dropping or neglecting GNU/Linux (on servers) and they also decided to commission studies which show GNU/Linux to be more expensive [1, 2]. Failing the first time, Microsoft argued, they can simply try again. This methodology fits well with tactics that are presented in internal Microsoft talks about "Effective Evangelism". One of the tactics is to manufacture evidence that you need and then reference it. Analysts can be compensated in many ways that escape the public eye, as detailed in the company's presentations (all endorsed by Bill Gates by the way).

In one of the documents disclosed in Comes vs Microsoft, Microsoft was seen explicitly asking IDC to remove signs of its sponsorship of a study. This study accidentally showed GNU/Linux (server) to be superior. Microsoft had similar studies conducted with market research groups like Yankee and Gartner.

It is worth emphasising that what challenges Microsoft is not just the market share of GNU/Linux. It's more complicated than that. As netbooks (sub-notebooks) have demonstrated, tough competition from Linux not necessarily leads to erosion of Windows' market share; instead, it rapidly leads to erosion of margins. Sources suggest that Windows has become virtually free (gratis) for some form factors, whereas in the case of servers, Microsoft has promotional means for advancing Windows not only through advertising campaigns. I have heard personally from Web hosts who were offered Windows for free so that they migrate away from GNU/Linux. In one case, the source was offered subsidies of hardware as well.

All in all, this comes to show that it's a multi-faceted issue which can be addressed and treated by considering questions like:

  1. How has GNU/Linux affected Microsoft's/Windows market share?


  2. How is market share defined?


  3. How has GNU/Linux affected Windows margins?


  4. What is the difference between perceptual GNU/Linux quality/market share compared to reality? There is room for distortion here and it is actively being exploited, as shown by authentic court evidence.


  5. How failure-proof is GNU/Linux? How many companies are involved in developing and supporting it? Symbian and Palm OS, for example, have a single breaking point.


As Chris DiBona from Google put it, "every time you use Google, you're using a machine running the Linux kernel."

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Brett Wilson LLP Sent Over 5 Kilograms (or Over 12 Pounds) of Legal Papers! Because Writing About Microsoft Abuses is 'Illegal'.
How do you guys sleep at night? On a big pile of Microsoft money?
Extremism as a Weapon Against GNU/Linux (Microsoft Lunduke)
He ought to know the Halloween Documents. Wasn't he a Microsoft employee when these came out?
 
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: Extreme Testing and Golang Documentation in Geminispace
Links for the day
Vice President of the European Patent Office (EPO) Complains That Techrights Gives Visibility to Legal and Technical Issues at the EPO
"Follow-up on enquiries relating to Dir. 1218 and 1001"
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com and Various Slopfarms That Lie About "Linux" and Are Promoted by Google News
Google does not seem interested in tackling this problem
Links 09/07/2025: War Updates and Microsoft Moving to India to Cut Costs
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Was Always a 'Movement' of Inclusion of Tolerance
Even the licences themselves remove access barriers
Links 09/07/2025: "Subprime AI Crisis" and "OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially"
Links for the day
Huge Piles of Legal Papers ('Paper DDoS') Do Not Impress Judges and Regulators
they just make judges and regulators even more suspicious of the eagerness to resort to 'paper DDoS'
Lunduke Isn't Even Hiding His Anti-Linux Agenda (From "Linux Sucks" to "Linux is Pedophiles")
just trying to make a lot of trouble
Some People Use Computers to Get Actual Work Done
Tolerance and inclusion must extend to acceptance that some people don't agree with you, might never agree with you, and imposing what allegedly works for you on them is unreasonable
Example of "Old" Things That Still Work
The notion that something being "old" implies it must be discarded is typically advanced by those looking to sell more of something
Some Scheduled Maintenance Later Today
Typically the most vulnerable service during short interruptions is IRC
Computers Are Just a Tool
People don't get married because they love weddings, folks don't join the army because they love war, and most drivers don't drive to work because they love cars
Apple Way Past Its Prime
Apple deserves a decline
The FSF's SysOps Team Recovered From Serious Hardware Issue Within Hours
About half a day ago I noticed that all/most GNU/FSF sites were not reachable and thus reached out to a contact for any details
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Slopwatch: Turning Bugs Into FUD About "Linux", Getting Basic Facts Wrong
all the screenshots are of fake articles; we don't want to link to any
Technical Reasons, Not Politics: With Wayland "it feels a lot like Linux from 20-25 years ago, which is horrendously frustrating, because it feels like we wasted one or two decades of progress and stability"
Lately, quite a few benchmarks were published to show Wayland compares poorly compared to what we had
PCLinuxOS Recovering From Fire
It looks like a nightmare scenario, where even backups onsite get destroyed
Links 09/07/2025: More Heatwaves, Officials Culled in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: XScreensaver and Resurrection
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day