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So what is the right statistic for Android owners? The honest answer is that we don’t know. You’ll note in the excerpt above, we were careful to say “Google-branded Android phone owners”.

The numbers actually ended up being that 77% of iPhone owners intend to purchase another iPhone for their next phone, one third of ALL smartphone owners plan to buy iPhones for their next phones, 36% of Google-branded Android owners (e.g. Nexus One) plan to buy an iPhone for their next, and 32% of Google-branded Android owners plan to buy an Android for their next phone.

The Yankee Group has been a microsoft shil for years!

Do the math.

I'm not sure how much of a "group" they are. After all, they have more directors and officers than "analysts." Still I'm sure the microsoft money is good.. http://www.yankeegroup.com/listAnalysts.do

E

Yep. And it gets better. The author of the report the CNN Money article is based on, Carl Howe, seems to have a conflict of interests that is not revealed unless you do some digging. A conflict to the point that I would consider his entire report suspect (at best.)

Mr Howe's blog had an entry that denied that the iPhone 4 had an antenna issue just two days before Apple finally came clean. From it I quote "I haven’t found anyone here at Yankee Group who has reproduced the death grip problem with our iPhone 4s." Considering how easy it is to reproduce the problem, they're either clueless, in denial, or trying to warp reality to cover up the problem.

Oh, and his own personal website has a "Made on a Mac" logo at the bottom. I think it's clear there is a certain degree of bias with this guy, and therefore, the Yankee Group as a whole.

You're assuming that AT&T commissioned the survey and the report and not Apple. If Apple commissioned the report and the Yankee Group are shills as alleged then that quote is perfectly acceptable.

I would say that if anyone commissioned a report like this it would be Apple, not AT&T. Why? The first hint is that the report this is based on is called "Why iPhones Matter." Next is that AT&T now has Android phones, so why would they try to defame phones in their lineup? More hints show up in the article. Even more in the public summary of the report, which focuses largely on how much more consumer driven the iPhone platform is. Here's that summary:

http://www.yankeegroup.com/ResearchDocument.do?id=53903

However, even if neither Apple nor AT&T commissioned the report or the survey, the information about how the Yankee Group conducts their surveys is telling about the quality of the data. Surveys are fickle things and how you collect the data is very important. Since we don't have access to the data (unless someone wants to fork over the money to buy it) we can't know for sure. The sampling could have failed to be sufficiently random. The questions could have been skewed such that respondents would give more favorable responses to the iPhone, or less favorable responses to Android devices. Seeing the dramatic gap in customer satisfaction, even as Android phones gain popularity (I base this claim on the increasing sales volume), made me question this survey. Realizing that this is the group that had Laura DiDio spreading FUD about Linux doubles my doubts about the legitimacy of those numbers.

As part of a post about the Haiti SMS campaigns (Red Cross and mGive bring charity Anywhere), I constructed a chart of $ collected over time, based on public announcements on twitter. It's amazing how it just skyrockets. The success of these campaigns may be the "breakthrough moment" which first associates SMS/texting with payments in the U.S. Jeffrey

This in an interesting piece of communication. The author has recently taken an interest in the BSA, including this recent article that promotes their Fear Uncertainty and Doubt message.

Quoted in the fine article are a director of enforcement for the BSA and as counterpoint noted analyst Laura DiDio. Ms. DiDio was originally famous for her role promoting the Amityville Horror hoax. These days she is perhaps better known for her astonishing (and curiously persistent) analysis of the SCO debacle in which she promoted SCO's position in front of the press and wound up a creditor in their bankruptcy(pdf) for her trouble. Her employer is alternately given as Yankee Group and G2 Computer Intelligence.

One can only wonder whether Erika Chikowski bothered to check her sources or if this is a case of envelope journalism.

I read all the way through the article. I want my five minutes back.

If you're going to trudge through it at least skip the ads and vote it down.

In 2002 scandal broke out when it was found that a European Commission proposal on software patents was actually written by a BSA official, as discovered by whistleblowers who found evidence in the Microsoft.

And this would be a worthwhile part of the article if she hadn't omitted the final "Word document".

I hate going through an endless string of blogs only to find a dead-end. From the horse's mouth:

Yankee Group - News Releases

In a head-to-head comparison, Windows Server 2003 shows the highest reliability gains, leading Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20% more annual uptime in similar deployment scenarios.

Now, maybe what they meant was that Windows gained 20% more than Linux gained, which would be meaningless without hard numbers anyhow, but that is not what they said.

If you take their "20% more annual uptime" literally, that would imply that if the Windows box had 100% uptime, the Linux box would have been down for more than 60 days. Clearly, this is gibberish.

You probably should not read the DiDio-bashing going on over at Slashdot today, but I do see what I believe is an error in the presentation of the data in the press release http://www.yankeegroup.com/public/news_releases/ne ws_release_detail.jsp?ID=PressReleases/news.server reliabilitysurvey.DiDio.htm.

The specific statement, "with nearly 20% more annual uptime" is I believe factually not supported by your numbers. Do you mean that Windows has 20% LESS DOWNTIME than RHEL?

"on average, individual corporate Linux, Windows and Unix servers experience three to five failures per server per year, resulting in 10.0 to 19.5 hours of annual downtime for each server."

If RHEL had 19.5 hours of downtime, and WIndows had 15 hours of downtime, this would be 20% less downtime. 5 hours less downtime per year is actually real data and would be useful to the press release.

On the other hand, 20% more annual uptime would actually result in RHEL being down nearly 61 DAYS per year assuming Windows is up 100.000%.Note: 60.8333 days = 365 - (365/1.2)

----------- The report may be correct. The press release is most certainly in error.

There is no use. With no real information, this study is crap. It is just throwing more FUD on the pile. One of my favorite bits: I love that Linux is refered to as a less mature operating system. "Yankee Group determined a significant portion of this outage time is attributed to the scarcity of Linux and open source documentation compared to the more mature, established operating systems."

In some ways (support for 3D graphics HW, sound), Linux is not as developed as Windows or MAC, mostly due to proprietary vs open driver issues. In many other ways (portability, support for older/slower HW, virtualization, load sharing across machines, security, customization), Linux has far greater maturity.

UNIX is a totally different issue, but the Linux vs UNIX comparison is moot as far as I am concerned. For the most part, the kernels are the only fixed-in-stone aspects of these OS's. Some things don't exist in the Linux kernel, others don't exist in proprietary UNIX kernels. Choose your poison based on what you need.

In the end, the list of features unavailable in Linux is short and inconsequential when compared to the list of features unavailable in Windows or Sun/AIX/etc. OpenMosix, Xen, and User Mode Linux alone should be enough to overwhelm the Linux downside of making sure you buy a video card from a manufacturer who isn't an ass.

Just to round out my arguement: the other measure of maturity is time-based. Windows NT (follow-on from ideas developed in other versions of windows) was first released in July 1993. Linux (follow-on from ideas developed in UNIX and minix) was first released in August 1991.

In a head-to-head comparison, Windows Server 2003 shows the highest reliability gains, leading Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20% more annual uptime in similar deployment scenarios.

Yankee Group Finds All Mainstream Server OS Platforms Exhibit a High Degree of Reliability

Underlying these findings is the crucial point that TCO metrics such as reliability, performance, security and management ultimately depend on an individual company's implementation.

This correlates with research published by others earlier this year. [Disclaimer: I know the author.]

M$ paid the Yankee Group http://www.yankeegroup.com/ to do research on the subject. From the Yankee site: "At the crossroads of opportunity and technology, Yankee Group Consulting provides customized solutions to help companies achieve success. ... that result in growth, leadership and profit. " Would they be honest about it, if Linux was as fast or faster? No, they say what their client wants to hear, resulting in publicity on /.

I remember she posted some crap that supposedly took an objective view of the Windows vs Linux TCO. She states there that the server operating systems are 'largely commoditized.' Excuse my language, but how in the h*ll is paying a grand for a Win2K3 server license a commodity? Does she know what a commodity is? Does she know that Linux is free (as in beer)? In addition, I read another article from BusinessWeek that stated that she had publised a "white paper" sponsored by Microsoft and was posted on their site.

How can this be objective and nonpartisan? Everything I have read by this person screams "Steve Ballmer paid me a couple of grand to make my Microsoft marketing look like real research in order to fool people that are still on the fence."

Thats the vibe I get anyway.

> Goody for you. When you and your friends who think like you are enough of a market share for them to care, their practices will change. Have fun.

I can't believe that a comment as clueless as yours was modded up, but there it is, currently at "Score:5, Insightful." Amazing!

If you were to take the time to learn what was happening in the industry, then you would know that, according to recent statistics, Linux is present in 60% of Windows environments. In fact, from the same source, 20% of all servers run Linux.

Therefore, at least 20% of the hardware sold for servers must be compatible with Linux. And as much as 60% of all PC buyers may be including Linux compatibility as part of the criteria they use in choosing their hardware, for both servers and desktops.

And you're saying that it's not worth it for PC hardware companies to document their specs??? You're saying that those companies would rather lose up to 60% of their potential business, than to pay one guy for six months to gather, organize, and publish the specs??? Get real!!!

I think it is much more likely that those companies either 1) are afraid of doing anything that might upset Microsoft, or 2) are taking advice from people who, like yourself, are not aware of what is happening in the market.

She's the equivalent of a troll - don't feed her.

Anyone with a BA in commmunication and minor in French must be an expert....

http://www.yankeegroup.com/public/research/author_ page.jsp?ID=2E01C474DD294963

http://www.gartner.com/
http://www.metagroup.com/
http://www.idc.com/
http://www.forrester.com/
http://www.idg.com/
http://www.jupiterresearch.com/
http://www.yankeegroup.com/
http://www.aberdeen.com/
http://www.amrresearch.com/

And yes, they all cost money. If you're an enterprise and you want input on how to spend you tens-of-thousands to multi-million-dollar IT budget, you can shell out a few more dollars to get some research.

I think the key indicator in the article that this is the latest in buzz phrase compliance was the recommendation that "Vendors have to get on the pulpit." It's all about getting the customers over the hump into buying all of the application servers and services that will give them true SOA.

The biggest hurdle is that "executives do not understand Web services or loosely coupled architectures" (per the Yankee Group's Philip Fersht). There's the rub, and the value, of the thing. The executives don't understand the value of separation of applications (what Roger Sessions calls Software Fortresses), but are beginning to be taught. If they can loosely couple, they begin to get choice of vendor at a finer scale. They can choose different vendors for differents parts of their critical systems. So the strategy of the large, integrated solution vendors will have to be to sell the buzzphrase while continuing to delivery monolithic messes.

> The results - with expert legal analysis - will be published free - we're not doing this to sell reports etc.

if you go to the site, you'll notice that on their front page they're advertizing Microsoft FUD by way of the Yankee Group.

what sort of analysis will the results of this survey be subjected to? I fear a slant....

ITF 2003

Here's her bio from the site...

Laura DiDio is a senior analyst for the Yankee Group's Application Infrastructure & Software Platforms Planning Service, which is closely aligned with the Enterprise Computing & Networking Planning Service. In this capacity, Ms. DiDio focuses on desktop and server operating systems, with a particular emphasis on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Active Directory, and Novell, Inc.'s NetWare. Additional areas of coverage are Web services platforms and standards including Microsoft's emerging .NET services and the rival J2EE. She also covers the directory services arena and interoperability and migration issues associated with Active Directory, eDirectory, and Sun's iPlanet, as well as desktop and server operating system security, software distribution, and third-party performance monitoring and management tools.

Ms. DiDio has covered client and server operating systems, directory services, and OS and NOS security for 15 years as an analyst, reporter, and editor. Prior to joining Yankee Group, she spent three and a half years at Giga Information Group, where she held a similar position. Before that she held various reporting positions at a number of computer networking industry trade publications including: Computerworld, Network World, Communications Week, LAN Times, and Digital Review. Ms. DiDio also worked as an investigative reporter for various broadcasting and print outlets including CNN and Channel 5 News in New York. Her investigative reports have also appeared in The Village Voice and The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Laura DiDio holds a B.A. in Communications and a minor in French from Fordham University

It should be noted that the Didio quote as since been removed from that article, but here it is for those who missed it. Don't ever forget this one, this is straight from Yankee Group and they should not be allowed to get away with it without a public apology IMHO:

"With the open source community, there are a large percentage of tinkers and 'ankle biters' who are trying their hand at hacking. Some are even communicating with each other. So it only takes one or two of these groups sharing information to be able to pull something off. When you have this type of passion, it's hard to fight because these people are like virtual suicide car bombers."

Is this people you'd want to buy services of? I don't consider myself "PC" in the least, but this is so fucking wrong and off the track it's not funny.

The funniest part of this whole thing has been the industry pundits explaining the ramifications of the source release in various media outlets.

"Unlike Linux desktops, which is like the wild wild west and not controlled and enhanced all the time, Windows users have come to take a quality controlled operating system for granted and not have to worry about a bad release," Winell said. "We hope that Microsoft can swiftly identify how the code got released, prosecute the perpetrator and build a barrier/security patch to protect against intrusions."

Mr. Winell has obviously never used Windows ME if he thinks Microsoft quality control prevents "bad releases". You know Econium must be a real player when the title of their home page is "Welcome to Econium who is a solutions provider."

The classic yesterday was Laura Didio from Yankee Group comparing OSS hackers to suicide car bombers.

Nothing like an embarassing Microsoft moment to get the "experts" out from under their rocks.

Yankee Group senior analyst (sic) Laura Didio has these alarming thoughts on internetnews.com about who might now be able to get their hands on the Windows source:

"With the open source community, there are a large percentage of tinkers and 'ankle biters' who are trying their hand at hacking. Some are even communicating with each other. So it only takes one or two of these groups sharing information to be able to pull something off. When you have this type of passion, it's hard to fight because these people are like virtual suicide car bombers."

So Microsoft is the defender of truth and justice in the free world, and OSS hackers are like suicide car bombers?

She then went on to warn of the dangers of hackers using the several hundred megabytes worth of leaked source code to compile their own pirated copies of Windows 2000. What a dumbass.

And what exactly is a "tinker", anyway?

One of the first questions to come to mind is "who is Laura Didio?" Some googling around will find a lot of references to her. And a couple of Bios - the already referenced HTML-ized cache copy of a PDF document might be the most recent. There is also an older one from her previous employer, the Giga Information Group. But don't stop there. Hit a few articles where Laura is quoted. Google for her and unix / linux. Look at the quotes there too.

Laura Didio's focus, as her Bios suggest, seems to be Windows and Microsoft products. And in this space, she is sometimes critical. She also comments on some Open Source software with how it competes with the entrenched Microsoft offerings. And she does occasionally comment on Unix and Linux in general. She is cautious towards Open Source and Linux in particular. If she does have a bias against Linux, it does not seem over-the-top (although I don't always agree with her assessments).

But bias isn't the point. It is expertise. She does not focus on Unix and its derivatives. I would find it surprising if she had any idea of the history involved with this system. Much less any sort of additional technical background it would take to hash out the possible origins of any given snippit of code.

And, of course, that is part of the problem. We're dealing with snippits of code. There is no context. Even an expert may have trouble tracking pedigrees in this situation - but at least they would have some chance.

The most Laura can do is get her name in the press. And become an object lesson for the warnings other analysists made over the entire situation presented by SCO and its NDA.

Here's the correct links: Yankee Group

and

Jap@n, Inc

Sorry... long day.