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Firefox @ 16%
Firefox @ 18%
Firefox @ 40%

So which one is right?

I don't know whether Mozilla is more standards compliant than other browsers in the technical sense, but from a web developers standpoint it has lots of little things that other browsers don't have and some big things as well, such as XPCOM. It's web developers web browser, and I expect that with Firefox 4 release which will introduce JavaScript 2, it will be conclusively be the best browser out there and will perhaps regain a majority market share

Parent's post is similar to thousands of posts here and in other /. threads. "My is using Ubuntu,...., No complaints".
If this is true, then why arent more than 5% of users on Linux? http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Does the geek really believe that changes in the user agent are statistically significant?

How many users know the agent exists?

How many would be comfortable making a change?

There is no intelligible reason for the agent to claim that it is running on Vista when it is not running on Vista.

OS Platform Stats [April 2008]

How then to explain why Vista shows a 9% share in the W3Schools stats - up from 0% in January 07 - and Linux 4% - up from 2% in March 03?

The Net Applications are far less charitable:

Operating System Market Share [Versions], Top Operating System Share Trend

You have to explain why the numbers and trend lines for OSX look about right while Linux struggles to gain a 1% share.

"They didn't say "no browsers but ours" they just included it for free." Wrong. That's exactly what then said to OEM vendors. Then, magically, IE became a integrated part of Windows and removal became "impossible". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/98lite

When Safari is running on +95% of internet devices, you may have a point. Apple isn't a convicted monopolist. Microsoft is. They have to behave differently because of it. They have no one else to blame but themselves.

If the numbers in TFA are true (36 million students, growing to 52 million by the end of 2009), then this is absolutely huge in terms of Linux install base. In fact, I think this project would approximately double the install base.

I know that "counting" the number of Linux installs is essentially impossible, but here are some random numbers I've accumulated that point to the approximate size of the Linux user base:
1. The Linux Counter estimated 29 million installs in 2005. This estimate involved numerous assumptions, such as extrapolating from 8 million installs reported by Red Hat in 1998.
2. According to an IDC study, the Linux marketshare for PCs was ~3% in 2003.
3. There are about 1 billion Internet users. Browser logs indicate that Linux accounts for ~0.8% to ~3.9% of web traffic. This gives us an estimate of 8 million to 39 million Linux users. (The upper estimate is undoubtedly an over-estimate since the value comes from W3Schools, which probably has a greater fraction of 'technical' users.)
4. According to Canonical's server logs from OS updates, there are approximately 6 million active users of Ubuntu (see here and here). Assuming that Ubuntu represents 30% of Linux usage (based on this), you can come up with an estimate of 20 million Linux users.
5. According to Fedora's logs for OS updates, there are approximately 2.8 million installations of Fedora Core 6, and 1.6 million of Fedora 7. Assuming Fedora represents 9% of Linux installs (again, based on this), you can estimate 48 million Linux users.

Obviously all of these methods have their own problems. I'm not claiming that any of these estimates are robust. However they do at least suggest a range for the number of Linux users (~20 million) and the marketshare of Linux (~1% to 2%).

So, this single project, it would seem, is drastically increasing (doubling?) Linux usage. This is huge, in my opinion, because a generation of students who have learned Linux will be far more likely to use and improve upon FLOSS when they enter the job market.

Can't you guys work out a way to write French without the accents? German substitutes e.g. ü to ue. Anyhow naïve can be correctly written naive in English. So GP could just use that if he can't remember the html character entities. Spelling it with the tréma in an otherwise English post seems a little prétentieux, don't you think?

I think W3Counter's numbers are probably fairly close. W3Schools reports Linux at 3.9%, while this tracker says it's at 0.61%. That puts W3Counter somewhere in the middle. All of these trackers show a gradual increasing trend over the past couple years...I doubt this will change in the long run. There's lots of shiny new distros coming out every few months, each better than the last - encouraging new users to try them out, while current users are unlikely to switch back to proprietary OSs, mostly because so many of the applications they come to depend would not be available or their alternatives are not free.

Growth curve?

What growth curve?

Top Operating System Share Trend [By Versions]
Top Operating System Share Trend

I've played pool tables with a more visible slope than this particular measure of the trend line for Linux - and since these are web based stats, I am going to assume that the numbers for Vista for real.

- - a fair representation of Vista's strength in the consumer market.

20% by the end of in April. 50% probably no later than late summer or early fall. The Back-To-School sale.

In the W3Schools OS Platform Statistics it took OSX and Linux five years to edge up from 4% to 8% of the market - and these stats track the pro, the web developer.

if you don't have Umlauts, use 'ue' instead

Everybody has umlauts on slashdot. They're called "html-entities" and are quite nifty. (They're actually very logical) For the u-umlaut, simply use ü

Of course you're right: at least the Germans have an alternate system. Try writing French without accents :-/

Take a look at that graph again and you will see Vista poised to take a 20% share in a month or two - and Vista sales have been strongest in the Premium and Ultimate markets.

The right question to ask is how the adoption rates for Vista compare to Windows MCE and XP Pro.

You should also have noticed that Vista is the only platform showing significant - and accelerating - growth. In the Net Applications stats, Linux is right where the Intel exec would place it: flat-lined at 0.61%.

The OS Statistics from w3Schools exposes trends over five years.

In the W3Schools stats Vista needed only six months to move from a 2% to 8% share. Linux five years to move from 2% to 4%.

The Mac fares no better on a site that targets the web developer.

Repetition becomes tedious.

But the Slashdot Geek seems to live within a bubble that no outside force can penetrate - without, of course, being modded down into oblivion.

"But, frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn."

Here are the links again, whether you like them or not:

MS Office

The Year of Office 2007
Microsoft SharePoint taking business by storm

"The "magnitude of Office sales relative to the rest of the PC software market" is phenomenal. It's the massively huge tail wagging the dog."

"The talk [around SharePoint] is getting strategic now, and people are talking about it as a middleware decision. MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) 2007 is the fastest growing product in the company's history."

MS Financial

Microsoft Q2 2008 by the Numbers

"Just four years ago, the majority of revenue came from North America. Now, 60 percent of sales are outside the United States. For the quarter, Microsoft sales increased 30 percent in emerging markets, 20 percent in established markets like Europe and 15 percent in the United States."

OS Market Share [Net Applications]

March 2008
OS Share Trend May 2007 - March 2008
OS Share Trend By Versions May 2007-March 2008

MS Vista 14% Up 10% from May 07
Win XP 82% Down 9%
OSX 8% Up 1%
Linux 0.6% Up 0.2%

In the familiar W3Schools stats it took Vista six months to grow from a 2% to 4% market share.
Linux five years.

How do you explain these numbers?

Over two-thirds of the dollar volume growth in the U.S. retail PC software market in 2007 can be attributed to Microsoft Office. In other words, the ratio of Office dollar growth to total PC software growth is 67 percent. Office sales are so big, they make calculating broader PC software retail sales difficult. The "magnitude of Office sales relative to the rest of the PC software market" is phenomenal, "It's the massively huge tail wagging the dog. The Year of Office 2007

Vista is showing healthy growth in OS platform stats, while the *NIX platform has stagnated.

Top Operating System Share Trend for April, 2007 to February, 2008, Operating System Market Share for February, 2008
OS Platform Statistics February 2008

60% of Microsoft's revenues come from outside the U.S. It is seeing 30% growth - each quarter - in Asia and Africa, 20% in Europe, and 15% in the states. Microsoft Q2 2008 by the Numbers

Microsoft's client business, on sales of Windows Vista, was especially strong in the quarter, with $4.34 billion in revenue compared to $2.59 billion in revenue a year ago. According to Microsoft, its client business has grown 20 percent on average since Windows Vista was made available nearly a year ago... Microsoft beats forecasts for Q2

The choice they are making is for Vista:

Top Operating System Share Trend for April, 2007 to February, 2008

In the Net Applications stats Vista is the only OS showing significant growth - or, for that matter, any growth at all.

What the Mac platform loses the MacIntel platform wins, and, as for Linux it remains precisely where the Intel exec would place it, at 0.65%.

Operating System Market Share for February, 2008

The W3Schools stats are kinder to Linux. But the trend lines are the same. 8% for Vista. 8% for OSX and Linux combined. It took OSX and Linux five years to get where Vista is now.

The gBook retains a toehold for now. But the dual core Vista Premium laptop starts at $550. OS Platform Statistics

Linux is for sale at Dell and Walmart

The gPc has disappeared from Walmart.com [March 28]. You are redirected to the $278 Everex Impact Desktop PC. The same system upgraded to 1 GB RAM and Vista Home Basic.

The $400 VIA gBook hangs on for now. But the dual core Acer AMD laptop with Vista Premium is $550. Long-term, Walmart hasn't been able to sell OEM Linux at prices that significantly undercut Windows - and, lord knows, they have tried.

The unbiased site would have:

1 a seperate section for the family of operating systems to be found on 92% of the world's desktops and with a very significant presence in the server room and other markets.

Operating System Market Share for February, 2008

2 it would dispose of the stained glass window and Borg icons which set the tone for every posting

3 it would accept that Vista is showing sustained and healthy growth in the marketplace, while the *NIX platforms, other than OSX, appear stagnant.

Top Operating System Share Trend for April, 2007 to February, 2008
[Vista 13%. "The Other" 2%]
OS Platform Dtatistics February 2008
[Vista 8% Up from 0% in one year. Linux 4% Up from 2% in five years.]

The geek might see more than a 0.65% market share for Linux on the desktop if he could let go the ides that Windows is "forced" on anyone.

In Asia and Africa where pirated copies of Windows compete with Linux on the streets, it is Windows that wins.

While WalMart has been trying for years to make OEM Linux mass-market in the states. Lindows. Xandros. The Sun Java System. The gPC... None has gone the distance.

It is easier for the geek to trot out his shopworn conspiracy theories than to look at Window's strengths and successes more deeply and more honestly.

--- and Vista is not the failure the geek pretends: OS Platform Stats

The paradox is this. I might make me 2 seconds per instance smoother. Maybe.

But the real difference is the LACK of this in Windows XP (72% of users). If I have 6 browser instances open, which I do, and I have MS Visual Studio, and Photoshop and 3 chat clients, and Outlook, and...

Windows treats EVERY instance as an icon on Alt-Tab. Every chat window is its own icon. 4 chats, 4 icons plus the parent. I can have 28 icons when I Alt-Tab. If MSVS is in the middle, I'll take 10 seconds to get there and not over shoot. But OSX treats each APP as an icon. Then F10 to Exposé if I need to (for the 56 photoshop windows)

Another insanely smooth feature is drag-drop a bunch of files onto the Photoshop icon on the Dock. Don't have to be able to see my desktop, cuz I haven't since 1969. I can do more with one hand on my mouse on my Mac than 3 hands and a footpedal on Windows. I have better things to do with my other hand [insert product placement pic of Diet Dr Pepper]

not including the Euro symbol

Considering that slashdot declares that the pages are iso-8859-1, there is no surprise that it doesn't support full unicode. However, the euro-sign can be displayed considering you're supposed to use HTML-Entities in the first place. So: € = €. Not, hard, is it?

Well the stats at W3Schools delisted Netscape in 2007, but they're still showing a percent and a half for Netscape.

So it's a good bet.

True stats according to W3Schools Enjoy

Is this a trick question?

Net Applications gives Linux 0.65% of the market. In line with the Intel exec.
Operating System Market Share for February, 2008 W3Schools is more charitable. But in their stats Linux has shown 1% growth in four years, Vista 7% growth in one. OS Platform Stats

If you develop for the XBox 360 you get the PC market as a bonus - and vice-versa. If you are in the big leagues you get a say in the evolution of DX10 hardware and software.

After ten years, there is a still a market for the boxed set of Half-Life 1 There is no incentive for the gamer to migrate to Linux if any game he has ever owned can play under XP and Vista with a minimum of tweaking.

The high end video card becomes the entry level card in two or three years. It will have a mature set of drivers. Gaming on a budget is perfectly feasible even under Vista.

Operating System Market Share for February, 2008

Linux with a 0.65% market share.
In the W3Schools OS Platform Stats Linux has seen 1% growth in four years, Vista 7% growth in one year.

The test suite is at best a snapshot of performance at a particular moment in time. It is rarely as objective a measure of the user's experience as its proponents claim.

No, Mac users can use silverlight, and have been able to for quite some time. Linux users will be able to use it soon, although I don't know about licensing and patents.

So, from a user's perspective, this is irrelevant. The concern in this new technology is on the server side of things, and in Microsoft's market position. Silverlight's purpose in life is to dynamically load xml within the DOM tree, which should sound familiar since that is essentially what Ajax does. Ajax, however, has some short comings, for which the w3c developed the E4X standard.

However, given the high quality of web applications written in Ajax, Microsoft rightly assessed that E4X threatened their office and email monopolies, and therefore their OS monopoly, because such applications are platform-agnostic. It is no coincidence that MS really started to push Silverlight development shortly after Google started testing high quality Ajax-based office, email and collaboration software.

Therefore, IE, which is already pretty non-standards compliant in its javascript syntax, still does not support it at all, although all other major browsers have for years. By creating and promoting silverlight, MS is essentially embracing and extending to get control of dynamic web page standards away from the w3c. They will try to promote silverlight in as many places as possible, and hobble Ajax in IE. They will develop a series of neat free tools that make it easy to develop in silverlight. Once there is a critical mass of pages that use silverlight, they will start to make "improvements" to the standard but only integrate those changes into their Windows plugin. When that happens, all web users will once again be locked into Microsoft. It will MS will also have the bonus of also being able to integrate features that depend on asp, forcing their way into the server market.

If you don't believe MS would use a strategy like this, just ask yourself why there was an IE5.5 for Macs and no IE6 for Macs.

Thus, improvements in technology that should be happening around an open standards making body, indeed would happen faster and more effeciently in this standards making body, are going to go into the hands of one company at proceed at a much slower rate. It's a classic embrace/extend/extinguish. It is just sad that the US government is supporting this.

In the January W3Schools OS Platform Stats Vista is poised to overtake OSX and Linux combined in a month or two.

It could take a little longer, but that scarcely matters.

The trend line for Linux is as flat as the Dakota prairies. 1% growth client-side in five years.

The Net Applications stats you quote show Linux with a 0.67% market share. Pretty much where the Intel exec would place it.

To experience the Year of Linux. the geek needs a time warp, suspended animation. He needs to be revived as "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century."

Obviously, technical superiority and free-ness are not good enough reasons to get everyone to switch over

It is time the geek stopped looking for easy answers in catch phrases like "lock-in," or "convicted monopolist." If his world is defined by a conflict between the cathedral and the bazaar, why is it that Microsoft is so successful on the street?

It is time the geek stopped looking for a government bail-out.

Whether from the bureaucracy of the EU - where Microsoft pays its hundred million dollar fines and still sees 20% growth - or from the African education minister who is expected to pick up the tab for one million XO laptops.

Microsoft built its empire from the ground-up. Too often the geek builds top-down. He thinks in terms of the enterprise distribution - the government mandate - that will magically drive small business and home users to Linux.

It was the Intel exec that gave Linux 0.8% of the desktop.

In the January W3 Schools OS Platfrorm Stats Vista is poised to overtake OSX and Linux combined in a month or two.

Not a bad showing for an OS whose greatest strength in 2007 was in the high end of the OEM consumer market, where the Vista Premium and Ultimate PC competes directly against the Mac system bundle.

the rise of the low end markets where they simply can't compete

Microsoft's $3 "Student Innovation Suite" bundles Learning Essentials for MS Office, Microsoft Math, Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live Mail, and XP Starter Edition.

The Vista Starter Edition will arrive somewhere down the road.

At first glance, the pricing is shockingly low considering the broader value of the software. For example, in the United States, Office Home and Student 2007 retails for about $150. But further examination reveals pricing not so out of line with what college students might see in the United States. It's fairly typical for universities to provide students with Microsoft software for as little as $5 or $10 a copy under a Microsoft Campus License. It's a bit out-of-box thinking. It is very clever," said Clive Longbottom, service director of Business Process Analysis for Quocirca. "We wouldn't see millions of licenses sold through educational institutions in established markets. You will see thousands."

But in markets like China, "you will see millions."

What is Microsoft's Unlimited Potential?

You are being far too charitable.

The Slashdot "editor" - and I use the word loosely - leads with any story slamming Microsoft and Vista, no matter how transparently flawed or fraudulent on its face.

The crapflood has been building ever since Microsoft posted its first and second quarterly returns.

____

The W3Schools OS Platform Stats are out for January.

With Vista positioned to overtake OSX and Linux in a month or two. Not a bad showing for an OS whose greatest strength has been in the Premium and Ultimate OEM consumer install.

> Everyone knows IE6 was horrible. I'm running IE7 under protected mode. If you're going to talk shit, at least talk shit about current software.

well in their defence more people still use ie6. so they are talking about current software.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

at my job it is split about 90% ie6 v 10% ie7 for internet explorer users. thankfully the number of ie users is dropping as more switch to firefox. ie7 has speeded up that switch as many hate the interface.

but to be on topic firefox has a serious bug. i expect it will be patched in a day or so. firefox is good at that.

> Microsoft products are getting better.

only because they have serious competition from firefox, apache etc.

> Deal with it. Quit living in the past.

i don't live in the past i use linux and mac osx.

Linux is doing just fine if you consider growth rate. These statistics - and those of several other sites I've encountered (including my own) indicate it's adoption rate is as fast as that of Apple's, in some cases moreso. However, adoption looks very poor if you look to 'market share', a figure based on sale count, and by far the most popular guage.

Recently, however, the wide success of the EeePC (and apparent solid sales of Dell's M1330 w/Ubuntu) shows that Linux can work very well in the hands of the uninterested or uninitiated if it comes preinstalled. At a conference I recently attended I met an art curator using an EeePC. She said she doesn't like computers but prefers the EeePC because "it's easier than my MacBook and has better internet". For the casual and highly mobile computer user I think Linux is very much claiming market share.

At the other end, the workstation market, Linux is also making very strong ground (3D animation, film compositing/editing, engineering).

Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses.

If this is castration, then let's give the eunuchs their due:

You can argue all you like about the specifics of the w3Schools stats but you are going to have a much harder time explaining away the long term trends exposed there.

Microsoft has posted first and second quarterly results for fiscal year 2008 that that have been nothing less than spectacular. It is debt free, paying dividends, and holds $20 billion or so in cash.

Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses. Microsoft reports record second quarter results

If this is castration, then let's give the eunuchs their due:

Vista is the only client OS to show significant growth in years. OS Platform Stats

You can argue all you like about the specifics of the w3Schools stats but you are going to have a much harder time explaining away the long term trends exposed there.

How many quarters does Microsoft have to show record growth and earnings in Windows sales before the Geek admits that Vista is taking hold in the market?

OS Platform Stats [December 2007]

Vista 7% [up from 0% in January O7]
OSX 4% [up from 3% in November 04]
Linux 4% [up from 3% in December 03]

It's not the absolute numbers in the W3Schoola stats that interest me, but the exposure of long-term trends. For all the talk here about Vista's "failure," it is the only client OS that has shown significant growth in years.

That growth has has to be rooted in Vista's success in the consumer market. In the OEM system sale with Vista Premium and Ultimate. The media PC. The gamer's special. The road warrior's Lenovo laptop,

Systems with much higher specs and more generous profit margins than the generic Linux econo-box.

Social Logic will help mitigate obstacles. Technology Logic as infrastructure is a partial solution. Business logic only, will fail.

A community (Social Logic) is always sharing implicit content to sustain the social relationships (work, pay, play, safety ...). In the work environment infrastructure (significant, maybe complete) community implicit content can be collected, grown, and maintain then mined, recovered, and recycled for business logic purposes.

With internal VoIP, email, PIM+, web-browsing history, VTC/Social conferencing, BioPKI tokens/authentication ... data/content bulk collection and Biz and HR essential information ... it should be possible to initially chart the conceptual ideal core-biz processes to core-personnel, then to external B2B/B2C processes and their essential contact information. All along this flow/path the core data/content bulk can be used to convert internal into explicit codified knowledge publications. Then, you must maintain the data/content bulk/audit trail to discover innovative, transitional, and situational variations in new implicit activities for intelligently transition of explicit knowledge publications and future BizTransformation (why, because shit happens and things change, thank god).

Tools to consider as part of the solution:
CMS, Syntax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML
CMS, Syntax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax
CMS, Syntax: http://www.w3schools.com/
CMS, Syntax: https://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=XML
CMS, Syntax: https://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=Content+Management+System
CMS, Syntax: https://sourceforge.net/services/buy/service_providers.php?words=XML+schema+syntax+
KMS, Semantics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
KMS, Semantics: http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/swsig/
KMS, Semantics: https://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=Knowledge+management+system
BPM, Semantics: https://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=Bussiness+Process+management
BRM, Synergy: https://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=business+relationship+managemnt
RMM, Synergy: https://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=relationship+managment+model
RMS, Synergy: http://nwn.blogs.com/
RMS, Synergy: http://secondlife.com/whatis/
TCM, Practical: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/isis/model-problems.htm
TCM, Practical: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/intro/documents/concept/
TCM, Practical:

What truth?

Microsoft has done spectacularly well in its first and second quarters

This is a thirty year old company showing 15% growth in a mature market.

Debt free and with $20 billion in cash.

In these OS Platform Stats, Vista is approaching the desktop market share of OSX and Linux combined.

Microsoft is engaged in projects as diverse and ambitious as designing and launching a comsat for Africa. Cameroon: Microsoft Partners With Schools for IT Development

MS Office 2007 is a runaway best seller at retail:

"Over two-thirds of the dollar volume growth in the U.S. retail PC software market in 2007 can be attributed to Microsoft Office. In other words, the ratio of Office dollar growth to total PC software growth is 67 percent." The Year of Office 2007

Firefox, Opera, Safari, and the various other Gecko/KHTML/WebKit derivatives aren't on their own significant enough to warrant special treatment

Oddly enough, according to some sites Firefox is currently the dominant browser in the market. So I guess that it's time for some web developers to get off their asses and stop making excuses to continue producing broken sites and ignoring the standards.

No, not directly. But it wouldn't matter anyways. The amount of extra time that it takes me is relatively a drop in the bucket compared to the entire cost of the site.

Even if cost was a factor, take a look at the browser statistics for December. IE6 has 33% market share vs 21% for IE7. Market share is always going to vary based on the type of site but regardless IE6 still has a sizable market share. The sites I do are primarily marketing sites for the general public, so just saying "It's cheaper if we design the site and test it only with 'modern' browsers" isn't possible. If I was developing a site as an internal application or geared for a specific audience that could be more easily controlled, then things would be different.

I have a Canadian Dollar here that says that this "update" is to shift the stats. As of right now, Firefox is p0wning IE6 OR IE7, but not IE6 AND IE7.

Does anyone have accurate statistics on IE version usage right now? Unfortunately my own stats really only break down between browser vendors and it's difficult to get per-version stats...

It's probably wise to start planning to stop supporting IE6 when it's usage drops below a certain percentage - the sooner we get rid of IE6 the better. Of course, a lot of users are stuck with it - but when things start breaking, they'll get the hint to either upgrade (if that's even possible) or just switch to a better browser.

Some stats here and a little blurb here

IE6 has fallen behind Firefox in browser share and IE7 is behind as well - at least by W3 stats.

IF M$ forces everyone to IE7 it will combine the two IE stats and make it the #1 browser by share again. But if you look at the trend Firefox is growing at a steady pace every year. By doing the force upgrade more IE users may say "enough" and take another look at downloading and installing Firefox. The way to tell that would be if the IE share drops drastically and the Firefox share jumps drastically. I'm kind of hoping this happens. If might mean a huge defiance against M$'s monopolistiic ways.

Like this

<a href="http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links.asp">Like this</a>

The point is that the article pretends that there is a lot of 'evidence' to back up their claims but none of those claims are by people other than the group of people writing the article. It's like citing yourself.

My logfiles are not 'written' by me but by the hundreds of thousands of users that visit the sites every month.

Of course they're not open to your inspection so you'll have to take my word for it but I don't have any incentive for lying (such as having either people backing firefox or microsoft as paying advertisers).

Of course, my stats are skewed a bit and so are everybody else's, but if you want to have as independent a view of the situation as possible then I suggest you look here:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Which seems to lend some credence to my figures (in fact, it would seem that IE usage is actually a bit higher than the norm on my websites).

In a year when Linux showed no growth on the desktop whatever. OS Platform Stats

It was January 31st before Vista entered the consumer market.

Late spring or early summer before the first mid-line DX10 cards appeared.

OEM system sales have been strongest for Vista Premium and Ultimate. TouchSmart, the media PC, the high-end laptop. The product doesn't look like the generic XP box and it sure as hell isn't running on generic XP hardware.

Joe's new 17" widescreen laptop has a dual core CPU.

2 GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, a Light-Scribe DVD burner, surround sound, a fingerprint reader, integrated WiFi, EVDO, a webcam and pretty much everything else that be shoehorned into the case - and all of it with working Vista drivers.

Joe isn't coming into your shop to "upgrade" to XP - or Linux. He's checking out of Best Buy with Office 2007 retail boxed. The Year of Office 2007

More statistics, from http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp:

2007 WinXP W2000 Win98 Vista W2003 Linux Mac
November 72.8% 5.1% 1.0% 6.3% 2.0% 3.3% 3.9%

2006 WinXP W2000 Win98 WinNT W2003 Linux Mac
December 75.7% 7.9% 1.0% 0.2% 1.9% 3.6% 3.8%

I was just considering to post this to Slashdot yesterday and see what would happen. Can you see the oh my dog factor? Linux _lost_ about 10% of its market share!!

No.. Bill wouldn't have linked to this page.. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp in response to "Linux (all flavors still constitute less than 1%) .

Even though he didn't mention the 1% linux OS is much larger than 1%, anybody who decided to actualy check the link. Nov 2007 Linux OS... 3.3% I don't think Bill would have provided a link to that page for us.

You see the much same thing in the w3Schools OS Platform Stats.

There are, by some estimates, one billion Windows users.

To claim 14% of a market that size in one year would be pure fantasy in any other context.

MS Vista was the only OS showing significant growth in 2007. Linux has gained absolutely no traction in the w3Schools stats in the better part of five years.

Vista's strength has been in OEM sales of Vista Premium and Ultimate in the consumer market.

That is good news for Dell, HP and the big box retailer.

The el cheapo $200 Linux box - the "network appliance" - makes headlines on Slashdot. But that isn't the only price point that interests Walmart - or the Walmart shopper: HP TouchSmart Desktop PC

Not only that, but the brand name multifunction color printer-scanner with a Vista driver will set him back less than $50. HP All-In-Printer & HP 21 Ink

The Geek tries to frame the "Microsoft Tax" as a percentage of the price of the computer. But the ordinary user - the middle class buyer - is looking at the price of the system bundle, the cost of services and consumables.

OEM Vista is a one-time expense.

The ink jet cartridge or the monthly bill for Roadrunner won't come any cheaper if he migrates to Linux.

I have heard this mantra repeated almost daily on Slashdot for five years, but where is the evidence to support it?

The Ww3Schools stats have the virtue of being easily accessible and track long-term trends. No one here complains when you quote the adoption rates for Firefox.

But Vista will end the year in the w3Schools stats with a 6% to 7% market share. Linux at 3% - little changed since the dawn of time. OS Platform Stats

Vista's strength has been in OEM consumer sales of Premium and Ultimate editions.

Which means its share of the inherently middle class home and SOHO markets is probably much greater than its presence on this developer's site would suggest.

How then do you make the argument that Linux is in track and Microsoft is not?

Three things struck me as significant in Friday's story on the budget Linux Walmart PC. PC Mag Slams Cheap Wal-Mart Linux Desktop

1 The Geek had to defend the sale of a Linux PC without a working modem.

Walmart services the poorest outland suburbs and rural areas where broadband penetration is weak and costs are high. Walmart still sells AOL Essential Services, dial-up at $9.95 a month.

Locally, we have seen a come-back for the home town based dial-up ISP, an aging demographic, higher prices for basic needs, may be a part of it.

2 The Geek gave the gPC the five-star rating.

The novice PC shopper struggling with patchwork hardware and an OS still in beta reluctantly awarded one star.

3 The Geek fumed that the newcomer had to be warned that a Linux PC wouldn't run the software written for the OS with 90% of the home market.

While the Half-Life Anthology for Windows sells retail boxed at the bargain bin price of $15. The Geek still obviously entranced by the notion that the "network appliance" is a marketable product.

The Walmart shopper would probably have been even more pissed off by the fact this alleged "system" wasn't being sold with a matching printer and monitor, The HP multifunction printer for the Mac and Windows was $50.

Most that work with browser issues on a daily basis considered IE6 dead and IE7 a spasm.

Come on guys, it's not like this is unique to Perl.

It is even cooler when you see that even on this site there are more vista users than mac users.

Vista 6.3%
Growing at slightly under 1% a month.
This train may have been slow leaving the station, but it is building up momentum.

XP 72.8%
XP's loss is Vista's gain?
The so-called "upgrade" migration to XP is beginning to look like just another Geek fantasy.

W2K 5.1%
Some good news for the die-hards.

Linux 3.3%
Slow erosion all year, and not much to show for four years of "The Year of Linux"

OSX 3.9%

A healthy niche, but ending the year where it began.

W2K made no significant inroads into the consumer market.

Its decline in other markets can be seen in the w3Schools OS Platform stats:

42% in March 03
20% in March 05
5% in October 07

"Rock solid" usually translates to "when running certified apps and certified drivers on mid-line hardware or better."

The eye candy in XP can be turned off.

What you can't turn off or slow down is development for the mass-market platform. The SOHO user running Quicken and Rhapsody and pricing the upgrade to his first DVD burner. His first digital camera. His first multifunction printer-scanner.