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Both W3Schools.com and CNET News.com report that Firefox users make up 18% of their audience. Techie-oriented sites, I know, so doesn't speak much for mainstream, but Google was a techie-oriented engine at some point as well.

Gates is noting that Linux is taking over, and claims that 10 years forward Linux and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market."

There are now almost 1 million Americans subscribing to VOIP services on their broadband lines and Vonage has 200 000 subscribers. They say by 2008 the number will be 17.5 mln.

December 2003: MP3 player sales for 2003 doubled

February 2004: 7 million MP3 players will be sold in 2004

July 2004: No, 10.8 mln digital music players will be sold in 2004

September 2004: 50 mln by 2008

The first link, however, will tell you that 19% of those who download music online already have an MP3 player. Furthermore, you have a whole bunch of people who use a PDA, their MP3 watch or what not to listen to the music.

December 2003: MP3 player sales for 2003 doubled

February 2004: 7 million MP3 players will be sold in 2004

July 2004: No, 10.8 mln digital music players will be sold in 2004

September 2004: 50 mln by 2008

The first link, however, will tell you that 19% of those who download music online already have an MP3 player. Furthermore, you have a whole bunch of people who use a PDA, their MP3 watch or what not to listen to the music.

December 2003: MP3 player sales for 2003 doubled

February 2004: 7 million MP3 players will be sold in 2004

July 2004: No, 10.8 mln digital music players will be sold in 2004

September 2004: 50 mln by 2008

The first link, however, will tell you that 19% of those who download music online already have an MP3 player. Furthermore, you have a whole bunch of people who use a PDA, their MP3 watch or what not to listen to the music.

December 2003: MP3 player sales for 2003 doubled

February 2004: 7 million MP3 players will be sold in 2004

July 2004: No, 10.8 mln digital music players will be sold in 2004

September 2004: 50 mln by 2008

The first link, however, will tell you that 19% of those who download music online already have an MP3 player. Furthermore, you have a whole bunch of people who use a PDA, their MP3 watch or what not to listen to the music.

In Q2 2004 Apple's market share was at 3.7%, while in Q2 2003 Apple was at 3.8%.

Apple's shipments, in fact, increased from 452K boxes to 495K, but the market grew at a rate of 10.9%, while Apple grew at the rate 9.3%, so officially they lost market share.

Well, first of all, Nokia has been very successful in the cell phone market, and generally when you have high-quality competing players, the competition kicks in, and things even out. Nokia boasted 34.7% global marklet share in 2003, and in Q1 2004 grew in European region with those new concept devices like N-Gage and what not. Suchy growth is hardly sustainable, especially when competition largely is just as good.

Second, US is a large market for cell phones in regards to global sales. However, few of US customers ever choose their cellphones, since in the United States the phones are purchased by the operator, not customer. Which still creates some sort of competition, but it's way tougher to push newer phones and newer features, while the operator still has the year-old models available and runs those commercial "and now get a free blah-blah-blah phone with the signup for 1-year plan".

Realistically I think slipping to 28.9% is not too big of a deal, and Nokia will kick back after maybe just one sweet deal with US operator like Cingular or Verizon, where new models get pushed.

Well, first of all, Nokia has been very successful in the cell phone market, and generally when you have high-quality competing players, the competition kicks in, and things even out. Nokia boasted 34.7% global marklet share in 2003, and in Q1 2004 grew in European region with those new concept devices like N-Gage and what not. Suchy growth is hardly sustainable, especially when competition largely is just as good.

Second, US is a large market for cell phones in regards to global sales. However, few of US customers ever choose their cellphones, since in the United States the phones are purchased by the operator, not customer. Which still creates some sort of competition, but it's way tougher to push newer phones and newer features, while the operator still has the year-old models available and runs those commercial "and now get a free blah-blah-blah phone with the signup for 1-year plan".

Realistically I think slipping to 28.9% is not too big of a deal, and Nokia will kick back after maybe just one sweet deal with US operator like Cingular or Verizon, where new models get pushed.

1.2%? Where are you getting your numbers? According to IDC, Linux had 2.8% of personal computers in 2002. That is not counting the server market where Linux has between 20% and 25% depending on who you ask and MS has only about 45% - 50% depending on who you ask.

Most of the successful businesses are not ideas, they are execution. Look at successful Internet companies right now: online marketplace, online bookseller that's not selling electronics and a lot more, large-scale information archival and retrieval system. Every once in a while you have Edison-like geniuses coming up with brilliant ideas that turn the world around and occasionally make their inventors rich, but more often than not, it's the execution, not the idea that matters.

And don't forget that Draper is not the only one, as NYT article states, he's one of the few people that would invest in half-baked startups, but nevertheless in the venture world he's still one of many. And there's $70 billion dollars out there ready to be invested into the next venture. VCs got a bit tough lately with dot bomb and everything, but the money is still out there, and there are fewer ideas, than there are brains.

Dude what crack are you smoking? Linux on the server is giving MS on the server a tough run for the money. And Linux on the desktop is on the heels of Mac. Nice try with spreading your Mac FUD. Oh, and according to some sites Linux on the desktop is already ahead of the Mac. It is time to step out of 1995.

Top US wireless companies by customer:
- Verizon
- Singular
- AT&T
- Sprint

The most hated cell phone companies (their customer service has something to do with it, I think):
- T-Mobile
- Sprint
- AT&T Wireless
- Cingular

Top US wireless companies by customer:
- Verizon
- Singular
- AT&T
- Sprint

The most hated cell phone companies (their customer service has something to do with it, I think):
- T-Mobile
- Sprint
- AT&T Wireless
- Cingular

Nielsen//NetRatings said 25% of US Internet users visited porn sites (results for December only), but who knows, maybe people behaved differently when tracked by that NN app.

Sales does not mean profits. Even though the sales of WiFi products more than tripled in 2003, the revenue growth of the market wasn't as good. Which means one thing - together with high demand the prices are falling down dramatically, and by now the WiFi equipment is heavily commoditized and thus outsourced to Chinese/Taiwanese/Indonesian manufacturers, which in the hardware world generally means no one else is expecting to make any money off of it (the same for Ethernet network cards, CD-Rs and other products).

The market will grow (in fact there are 700K WiFi networks right now, and much more are expected), but the margin range is just not there - I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year the WiFi prices hit such a rock bottom, that some manufacturers will in fact lose money.

Apple is doing very nice - 20.2% of the 802.11g market, the first-mover advantage, and leading in revenues, outrunning even Cisco (according to Business Week). But (a) we still have to find out what the profit margins are on Apple WLAN equipment and whether SteveJ got his R&D expenses back by now, and (b) Apple is one company that is uncapable of fighting price wars. Pitch Apple against a Chinese clone factory pushing millions of WiFi access points and networks cards at half the prices, and market share is eroded. Unless Apple finds some way to lock up consumers into buying its products (easy to do with Powerbooks, not so easy with Airport access point buyers), they won't do well either in this market.

Sales does not mean profits. Even though the sales of WiFi products more than tripled in 2003, the revenue growth of the market wasn't as good. Which means one thing - together with high demand the prices are falling down dramatically, and by now the WiFi equipment is heavily commoditized and thus outsourced to Chinese/Taiwanese/Indonesian manufacturers, which in the hardware world generally means no one else is expecting to make any money off of it (the same for Ethernet network cards, CD-Rs and other products).

The market will grow (in fact there are 700K WiFi networks right now, and much more are expected), but the margin range is just not there - I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year the WiFi prices hit such a rock bottom, that some manufacturers will in fact lose money.

Apple is doing very nice - 20.2% of the 802.11g market, the first-mover advantage, and leading in revenues, outrunning even Cisco (according to Business Week). But (a) we still have to find out what the profit margins are on Apple WLAN equipment and whether SteveJ got his R&D expenses back by now, and (b) Apple is one company that is uncapable of fighting price wars. Pitch Apple against a Chinese clone factory pushing millions of WiFi access points and networks cards at half the prices, and market share is eroded. Unless Apple finds some way to lock up consumers into buying its products (easy to do with Powerbooks, not so easy with Airport access point buyers), they won't do well either in this market.

Sales does not mean profits. Even though the sales of WiFi products more than tripled in 2003, the revenue growth of the market wasn't as good. Which means one thing - together with high demand the prices are falling down dramatically, and by now the WiFi equipment is heavily commoditized and thus outsourced to Chinese/Taiwanese/Indonesian manufacturers, which in the hardware world generally means no one else is expecting to make any money off of it (the same for Ethernet network cards, CD-Rs and other products).

The market will grow (in fact there are 700K WiFi networks right now, and much more are expected), but the margin range is just not there - I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year the WiFi prices hit such a rock bottom, that some manufacturers will in fact lose money.

Apple is doing very nice - 20.2% of the 802.11g market, the first-mover advantage, and leading in revenues, outrunning even Cisco (according to Business Week). But (a) we still have to find out what the profit margins are on Apple WLAN equipment and whether SteveJ got his R&D expenses back by now, and (b) Apple is one company that is uncapable of fighting price wars. Pitch Apple against a Chinese clone factory pushing millions of WiFi access points and networks cards at half the prices, and market share is eroded. Unless Apple finds some way to lock up consumers into buying its products (easy to do with Powerbooks, not so easy with Airport access point buyers), they won't do well either in this market.

Yes I know. It is hard to pick whose stats to accept. Google's Zeitgeist show Mac at 4% and Linux at only 1%, while this site shows IDC analyst showing that Linux 25% of the new server market an 2.8% of the desktop which is almost the same as Mac on the desktop. It is hard to know whose "stats" to accept anymore : )

AstroDrabb has made the contention five or so different times in this forum (mostly below this one) that Linux maintains a 2.8% share of the desktop, thoughtfully providing a link to ITfacts, a IT news outlet of dubious reliability in some of its other assertions. Following the link given by IT Facts, the 2.8% figure is actually from a story in Telegraph.co.uk, which is itself citing a new study by the research and marketing firm IDC. A pretty convoluted chain of evidence, to say the least.

If you actually care to read the study on which the whole house of cards rests, which AstroDrabb evidently has not, you would find that it relied in its figures on a survey administered to a geographically isolated population in North America, and does not claim that the 2.8% figure is extensible to the global market; rather, it is provided to demonstrate Linux's proliferation over time in a very circumscribed market. Moreover, the survey relied on self-reports, and admits that its results are not empirically sound; they are intended to provide a "snapshot of Linux's market presence." Finally, the study does not discriminate between various implementations of Linux, nor does it even differentiate well between Linux and UNIX users in its questionaire. The authors concede that the sample "may include some UNIX platforms as well."

In short: The 2.8% figure AstroDrabb has posted over, and over, and over again in this forum is simply incorrect. It relies on a information collecting method that the surveyors conceded is unsound and certainly not globally extensible, and embraces not only mutually incompatible implementations of Linux, but some UNIX users as well.

Well-meaning Slashdotters should check their data more thoroughly before relying on it as naively as AstroDrabb has. Or perhaps he did so because it was simply what he wanted to hear.

There's a lot of contention among surveys. For example, while AstroDrabb's precious study found that 25% of the new servers bought ran Linux, The Register reports that the figure among servers actually in use is 8.6%. (The author of the piece is a NewsForge columnist and a Linux user herself.

My point is simply to remind everyone of Benjamin Disraeli's famous aphorism: "There are three kind of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." You can always find a percentage that makes you right and/or happier, but that doesn't make it true. Linux is a fine OS that is on the grow, but Apple is quite right not to consider it a direct rival to its core business at this stage. All of the percentages in the world aren't going to change that.

Linux is growing but still has few desktop users, so porting to Linux will not give them many more customers.

It can create users. For example, I have a few Linux desktops and _ONE_ windows XP desktop at home. I don't use windows xp for much and don't install software on it. I also did not want to install Apple's iTunes application just to check it out to see if they have the songs I like. So I downloaded this app, did a quick search, and wham, iTMS does have the songs I like. I now will probably give iTMS a try to see how I like it. Though I doubt I personally will use it much since I purchased tons of CD's years ago and mostly listen to them. With this little app I can preview some newer material to see if there is anything I may be interested in buying. I personally don't want to use windows XP and I don't want to have to use it to browse music to see if there is anything new I may like. Linux has 25% of the server market and 2.8% of the desktop. Just about the same desktop share as Apple. So, Apple has the same potential market size that they get from their Mac OS X users. The only reason I can think of for Apple not to have even a non-supported Linux client is because they want a hardware monopoly. They have to support MS Windows if they want any success, and if it is not MS Windows, they want it to be their OS. That is just wrong to me and not any different then the tactics by MS. Thier iTMS should be platform agnostic and only exist to drive iPOD sales to _all_ consumers regardless of that consumers OS of choice.

Mac OS X contributes a tiny fraction of that 99% home system base. Apple could save themselves money and not support Mac OS X, since they are not making much money from those users. Linux has far more market share when you count all installations of the OS. Linux has 25% of the server market and 2.8% of the desktop, just 0.2 percent behind Apple on the desktop. Linux desktop installs should surpass Mac OS X desktop installs this year or next year at the latest. So Apple has an equal and very soon, larger market in Linux users then Mac OS X users. So why doesn't Apple even provide a non-supported iTMS client for Linux? Oh yeah, Apple wants a monopoly in hardware. They had to support MS Windows if they wanted to have any chance at grabbing the market in online music stores and portable players.

As things stand, a Linux virus or backdoor serves to only attack ~5% of the market.

However, there are things far more important then market share such as the systems architecture. Unix/Linux has a LOOOONG history of a clear separation from user files/directories and OS files/directories. That is why a normal user under Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, etc can only install/modify things in their home directory or directories that they own (traditionally only their home directory). MS Windows on the other hand has no separation on what files a user can modify by default. Your average Joe User running MS Windows XP is running with Administrator rights and a virus/worm/etc can just kill the whole system. I believe Mac OS has this problem, though not as bad as MS Windows. The permissions on the Applications directory can be pretty loose.

but if you are anything like me you feel that in the scope of Open Source and Free Choice too many options are left open on the installation options

I'm sure most people you've met haven't paid for Microsoft Office, which merely strengthens my point. Most people pirate their software. That's why $500 PCs seem like such a bargain; people aren't paying for the software they install on it.

unless you run Linux and OpenOffice (which by all reliable sources is less than 1% of the desktop market)

ComScore also collects data on Internet pornography-viewing habits, although that was not part of the online publishers' report. According to the company, more than 70 percent of men from 18 to 34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month, and those men make up 25 percent of the visitors to such sites. They are 39 percent more likely than the rest of the Internet population to visit the sites, said Graham Mudd, an analyst for comScore.

About 30 million Americans are accessing the Internet from some place other than home or work. School, neighbor's house or friend's house, and libraries.

In December 2003 only 126 million Americans were online. Also, interesting to note that 66 mln use the Internet on a daily basis.

If it has anything to do with the research or numbers outside of your own company (like you surveyed someone in the industry or you consolidated the questionnaires from your clients), I will take it (link to it with article piece).

I run IT Facts site, which collects facts on IT, mostly research, surveys, numbers and graphs.

Send an e-mail to webmaster at that domain name. The site is also syndicated to some other outfits, so you'll get exposure on other resources, too.

Among the organizations working with Yahoo! are National Public Radio, Northwestern University, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library and the National Science Digital Library.

Here's the list of the best-selling software titles for 2003 (by quantity sold, not dollars fetched):
1. TurboTax 2002 Deluxe
2. Norton Antivirus 2003
3. Turbo Tax 2002
4. Norton Antivirus 2004
5. TurboTax 2002 Multi State 45
6. Taxcut 2002 Deluxe Block
7. Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade
8. Microsoft Office XP Student and Teacher Edition
9. Taxcut 2002 State Block
10. Norton Internet Security 2003

You can see that tax software is huge thing for a bunch of people to have on their desktop. Office suite is another. Internet security (not just antivirus, but user-friendly firewall, port manager and other utilities).

Office is pretty much covered with OpenOffice, so that's done. As for Internet security tools, I am not sure which ones exist for the end user, but perhaps industry could come up with some.

Tax software. Is there a good tax package for Linux, allowing those millions of accountants, small business owners and middle-class Joe's like you and me file their taxes?

Out of free (of charge) software that is getting huge market share of desktop, what would the Linux equivalent of:
- Kazaa
- Real Player
- ICQ/AIM (ok, Gaim is a good alternative)

So we are ridiculing Intel for supporting common architecture and collaborating with competitor? I guess the implication is that the proper thing Intel should have done is develop its own set of 64-bit extensions, making it absolutely incompatible with AMD's offering. The world would be a much better place then, right?

And Intel doesn't really have to advertise the fact that it's AMD-compatible, it's not like AMD owns more than 80% of the market, and Intel is below 20%. To hyperbolize, you don't expect Microsoft to announce the next version of Office to be compatible with Joe's Software Shop's software.

US unemployment right now is 5.6%, the lowest it had been in 2 years.

Silicon Valley will ad 17,000 jobs this year and 33,000 next year.

US unemployment right now is 5.6%, the lowest it had been in 2 years.

Silicon Valley will ad 17,000 jobs this year and 33,000 next year.

People will actually buy more cell phones next year. With 1 billion GSM users there will be more than half a billion phones sold next year.

Part of that is new users, but yes, people are buying replacements like no one had expected.

People will actually buy more cell phones next year. With 1 billion GSM users there will be more than half a billion phones sold next year.

Part of that is new users, but yes, people are buying replacements like no one had expected.

In the United States cable owns 75% of the market, while satellite only has 22%. 10 years ago cable had pretty much a monopoly on non-broadcast channels.

Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold

Symbian owned two-thirds of the market, Microsoft - 14%, Palm - 13%

HP is becoming the biggest name in the industry with 33% market share globally, but Nokia has 78% in Europe, Middle East and Asia.

Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold

Symbian owned two-thirds of the market, Microsoft - 14%, Palm - 13%

HP is becoming the biggest name in the industry with 33% market share globally, but Nokia has 78% in Europe, Middle East and Asia.

Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold

Symbian owned two-thirds of the market, Microsoft - 14%, Palm - 13%

HP is becoming the biggest name in the industry with 33% market share globally, but Nokia has 78% in Europe, Middle East and Asia.

In September the CRN magazine did its own survey of employers and asked what certifications were the most sought for.

For small businesses the top results included CheckPoint certs and Microsoft MCSA (not Systems Engineer, mind you, but Solution Architect, which is on of their developer certifications).

For large businesses it was MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer) and MCDBA (database).

Dell ships RealOne Player Free with their PCs and resells RealOne paid version. Dell commands 17.4% and sells at least 120,000 PCs a day.

Even though Real did not get HP (17.1% market share), it doesn't look like that was Microsoft intervention, with HP being the Unix vendor and all.

Dell ships RealOne Player Free with their PCs and resells RealOne paid version. Dell commands 17.4% and sells at least 120,000 PCs a day.

Even though Real did not get HP (17.1% market share), it doesn't look like that was Microsoft intervention, with HP being the Unix vendor and all.