____/ Homer on Thursday 24 Nov 2011 06:03 : \____
> Verily I say unto thee that Chris Ahlstrom spake thusly:
>
>> This author still sticks to her guns regarding current numbers, in
>> spite of attacks:
>>
>> http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2011/06/one-year-later-adobe-abandons.html
>
> [quote]
> Last year Bruce Byfield, in an article for Datamation, quoted KDE's
> Aaron Seigo placing Linux desktop adoption at anywhere between 8% and
> 12%. My own research and analysis lead me to write an article last
> September that also put the number at 8% or more.
> [/quote]
>
> It's quite believable, given that every "Linux market share" statistic
> is based on browser stats cherry-picked from unpublished sources, which
> may well be largely Windows-centric sites, for all we know, thus biasing
> and invalidating the outcome. Until the likes of Hitslink et al actually
> reveal their mysterious sources and methodology, their "stats" are
> basically worthless.
And funded by Apple and Microsoft (the clients).
> Then there's the fact that a large number of GNU/Linux deployments are
> never used to "browse the Web" (e.g. servers), and thus will never count
> towards those stats, regardless of whether or not the target sites are
> Windows centric.
>
> And that's just x86 systems. Unlike Windows, Linux is Linux, no matter
> what hardware its running on, and therefore the policy of segregating
> non-x86 Linux systems from the "desktop", for statistical purposes,
> further dilutes Linux's true market share, and biases the outcome in
> favour of Windows.
>
> Then we have the way certain companies, including Microsoft, calculate
> "market share", based on revenue, not seats. This leads people to
> conclude, rather simplistically, that Windows is more widely used than
> it really is. Kinda like people assuming the iPhone is more ubiquitous
> than Android, because Apple has a 52% "market" (i.e. revenue) share, but
> this belies the fact iPhones are only owned by 4% of the market.
>
> Of course, companies care about such things, but consumers don't, or at
> least they shouldn't, logically, since its of no benefit to them - quite
> the opposite in fact, since higher prices means they're getting less
> value.
>
> But the most compelling evidence that GNU/Linux has more than the
> mythical "1%" market share comes from Microsoft itself. Ballmer quite
> emphatically stated that Linux is Microsoft's biggest competitor, and
> even demonstrated it in a lovely pie chart:
>
> [quote]
> For a man who just got fined more than a billion dollars for antitrust
> violations, Steve Ballmer is feeling plenty of competitive heat.
>
> ...
>
> [Page 2]
>
> A couple of years ago you reiterated that IBM was Microsoft's biggest
> competitor and you said not just on the business side, but overall. If I
> ask you who is Microsoft's biggest competitor now, who would it be?
> Ballmer: Open...Linux. I don't want to say open source. Linux, certainly
> have to go with that.
> [/quote]
>
> http://news.cnet.com/Feeling-the-heat-at-Microsoft/2008-1012_3-6232458.html
>
> [quote]
> Microsoft'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.
>
> ...
>
> 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.
> [/quote]
>
> http://www.osnews.com/story/21035/Ballmer_Linux_Bigger_Competitor_than_Apple
>
> As for Adobe, they've always been hopeless at multi-platform support. It
> took them *12 years* just to rebuild a *tiny-little plugin* for 64-bit,
> and even that was just an alpha. It took another 3 years to get to beta.
> So if Windows 8/ARM users expect to see their favourite "killa appz",
> Photoshop, with its vast sprawl of spaghetti code, on Microsoft's
> not-really-Windows platform any time soon, they're living in la-la land.
> Not that Adobe will really be missing much, considering that 60% of
> Photoshop users are "pirates", apparently.
>
> http://blog.epicedits.com/2008/03/28/60-of-photoshop-users-are-pirates/
There are lots more of these. But repeated often enough the lie can seem credible.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Dr. Roy S. Schestowitz, Research Fellow
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux administration | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Editor @ http://techrights.org & Broadcaster @ http://bytesmedia.co.uk/
Managing partner @ http://scifitness.co.uk & http://iuron.com
GPL-licensed 3-D Othello @ http://othellomaster.com
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