Summary: Another look at how IDC, which lists Microsoft as a top client, makes it appear as though GNU/Linux has a small share in servers

Pogson 'exposes' a dishonest Microsoft booster, Preston Gralla.

He made the mistake of echoing IDCs market-share factoids for operating systems on servers. Unfortunately for him readers were aware that many servers are obtained without an OS and cloned by the thousands with GNU/Linux. Read the comments. It goes on for pages.

IDC does mention units with each OS but conveniently neglects re-purposing or naked servers… Oops. 91% of the Top500 HPC systems and Google come to mind. That other OS may be useful on a server for running the difficult-to-manage OS on clients but compensating for inadequacy by adding more inadequacy is not merit.

IDC will carry on with its deception and ignore the many critics who raise valid points. According to Wikipedia, "IDG evolved from International Data Corporation (IDC) which was formed in 1964 in Newtonville, Massachusetts by Patrick Joseph McGovern and a friend. IDC is now a subsidiary of IDG." Need it be added that Preston Gralla is an employee of IDG? Conflict of interest here and yet another example of IDG covering its own bogus 'research' which is profitable precisely because it's adverse to logic and constitutes a sellout. To give some previous examples of IDG failures:

• IDG/IDC Does Microsoft's Revisionism to Deny Crimes
• IDG/IDC (Yardena Arar): Bribed by Microsoft
• IDG OpenMic Should be Renamed OpenMicrosoft
• IDG 'Forgets' to Name Microsoft for Bending “Open Source”
• IDG Carries on Publishing Anti-GNU/Linux Rhetoric from Microsoft Evangelist in More Domains
• Troll Warning: Bill Snyder, IDG, Microsoft Investor
• IDG Gives a Platform for Microsoft's Familiar Attack Dogs (and Former Employees) to Smear GNU/Linux
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• NetworkWorld's (and IDG's Other Sites) “Open Source” Blogs Are Not in Favour of Open Source
• IDG Approaches Microsoft-Funded and Microsoft-Hired 'Analysts' (Without Disclosure) to Defend Windows Security

IDC recently spread lies for the BSA/Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4].

Among the paid deployments of GNU/Linux, Red Hat is well ahead (RHEL), but one mustn't forget CentOS, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, and to a lesser degree SLES, which is taxed by Microsoft and no longer enjoys Microsoft's patent coupons ("vouchers" which Microsoft privately refers to as "royalty payments", according to Matt Asay). Watch what Novell is doing in the UK at the moment:

Novell axes direct commission

[...]

In a final push to get closer to the channel, Novell has unveiled a commission structure that only rewards deals involving partners.

Will this be enough to resolve Novell's long-lasting UK channel problems [1, 2]? It doesn't seem like it. Besides, companies know that Novell is too much of a risk due to uncertainty amid takeover talks. Existing users of SLES sometimes dump it for RHEL [1, 2]. ⬆

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

--Steve Ballmer (September 2008)