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

–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO (September 2008)

ontrary 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 Citrix) and VMware (now run by former Softies) to interfere.

In order to understand how 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.

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” (I have a copy here, a court exhibit from Comes vs Microsoft). Publicly, realisation of the 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).

Internal 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 Linux (on servers) and they also decided to commission studies which show Linux to be more expensive. 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 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 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 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 Linux affected Microsoft’s/Windows market share?

2. How is market share defined?

3. How has Linux affected Windows margins?

4. What is the difference between perceptual 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 Linux? How many companies are involved in developing and supporting it? Symbian and Palm OS, for example, have a single breaking point.

Direct link

This is part of a multi-part series (follow the link above).

Y intent is never to promote anything. I just try to find facts that are usually separate from consensus, which is very typically distorted, e.g. in politics (“war on terror”).

Some people are concerned about facts because we are all very skilled at beautifying our own integrity. The reporter who is selected to cover for a publication based on inclinations, convictions or obedience, for example, is often sufficiently indoctrinated so as to actually believe his/her writings, say X, about Y (well, “everyone else is writing X about Y too”). It’s a cyclic trap, it’s sheep/cattle effect. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy in a sense. We see it in Comes exhibits (e.g. “The NC is dead” roadshow) and the Gartner Group was openly accused of doing the same thing to set standards.

Only by challenging conventions with facts can we find truth, then present it and preach to defend it (money always fights against truth).

This is part 9 of a 10-part mashup which is worth watching because it’s mind stimulating.

Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable.

The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised…

— Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

With Linux, you own your computer and share code.

With Windows, you share your computer but can’t own code.

Photo from around 1984

R. GLYN MOODY HAS JUST TAGGED ME, which means that I became a (flattered and willing) victim of an endless chain:

The rules that apply to those whom I tag are:

• Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged.

I last did this a couple of years ago, so I’ll reuse four and add three more.

1. I never tie my shoes these days. Whether it’s sneakers or something more formal, I tie the laces just once and then use the shoes as though they were flip-flops.
2. As s child, I wanted to play the trombone
3. I worked at Burger King for a year (as a teenager)
4. I nearly always use the computer while I eat
5. I sometimes wonder if technology does more harm than good to us homo sapiens
6. Nothing bores me more than lectures about knowledge that will never be applied for good cause. I fall asleep easily at such talks.
7. I’ve begun abstaining from many things that emit radiation, no matter what self- or corporation-appointed scientists say about the long-term impact

I pass on this chain to:

1. Mary Jo Foley
2. Russell Ossendryver
3. Matt Cutts
4. Matt Mullenweg
5. Matt Asay
6. Matt
7. Michael Larabel