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True Desktop Market Share for GNU/Linux

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Summary: A reader's take on GNU/Linux market share and why some firms get it wrong

SEVERAL years ago we wrote many posts about GNU/Linux market share. We no longer do this because it's a subject we've addressed very thoroughly. One reader sent us the following thoughts last night:








The problem with [Microsoft-backed] net statistics are they don't take into account deployments where there are less open net hits. Take academia, where hits might be limited to mostly intra-net, and costly outside access is limited. Take into account where Linux is greater in deployment in 3rd world countries. Internet bandwidth is expensive, so open external usage is limited to those who can afford. Others may limit themselves to limited bandwidth with limited open browsing and E-mail.

So, net statistics do not tell the full picture of what is exactly out there.

The following is collated from http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Only annual month of May is shown for comparison:

Win7 WinXP MSFT Linux Mac *nix 2011 36.50% 40.70% 85.20% 5.10% 8.30% 13.40%

Win7 WinXP MSFT Linux Mac *nix 2010 18.90% 55.30% 88.30% 4.50% 6.70% 11.20% 2009 1.10% 67.20% 89.50% 4.10% 6.10% 10.20%

Vista WinXP MSFT Linux Mac *nix 2008 9.30% 74.00% 88.30% 3.60% 4.70% 8.30% 2007 2.80% 75.00% 87.10% 3.40% 3.90% 7.30%

W2000 WinXP MSFT Linux Mac *nix 2006 10.70% 74.20% 88.70% 3.40% 3.60% 7.00% 2005 19.40% 64.50% 90.00% 3.30% 2.90% 6.20%

W2000 WinXP MSFT Linux Mac *nix 2004 29.60% 51.00% 91.10% 2.90% 2.50% 5.40% 2003 41.00% 31.40% 92.80% 2.20% 1.80% 4.00%

These show that Windows is on the decline and Linux is on the rise.





In my personal site, about 16% of the visitors (nearly 1,000 people per day) use GNU/Linux. When we had tools to check this in Techrights (before implementing heavy caching) we found that for a couple of years ~40% of our visitors used GNU/Linux.

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