Posted by
Roblimo
on from the moving-more-rapidly-than-expected dept.
Beta Master writes "CNet reports that sales of Linux for servers are higher than sales for any other operating system except WinNT. IDG marketing group statistics are included. Full story here."
"Last, but not least, this =may= be good news, in the longer-term. If people are buying NT in vast quantities, NOW, then they are unlikely to upgrade to Windows 2000 in a hurry. Too expensive to make that kind of move. These figures may, therefore, be good for Microsoft right now, but they might be killers for their sales, later."
I think Microsoft themselves have admitted that the vast installed base presents a problem -- they have to keep selling people stuff they already have.
As for the numbers being confusing -- indeed. What I'd like to see are the following:
Chart of OS unit sales in 99, 98, AND 97. This would tell us what was not said in the article: did the flat share for NT represent a cooling off? I expect that NT's share _had_ probably been growing steadily.
Chart of OS $ sales in 99, 98, AND 97. This would tell us whether NT has kept share by dropping prices (I think so, if I remember events of the past year correctly) or despite raising prices. We'd also be able to see the Linux $ growth more clearly, and see whether popularity = ability to command higher prices, which many suspect is not the case with commodity open-source.
Microsoft must be frustrated as hell: they spent all this money to get into the high-buck server OS market, only to arrive after Linux has turned it into the low-buck server OS market!
-- "You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Slashdot Mirror
"Last, but not least, this =may= be good news, in the longer-term. If people are buying NT in vast quantities, NOW, then they are unlikely to upgrade to Windows 2000 in a hurry. Too expensive to make that kind of move. These figures may, therefore, be good for Microsoft right now, but they might be killers for their sales, later."
I think Microsoft themselves have admitted that the vast installed base presents a problem -- they have to keep selling people stuff they already have.
As for the numbers being confusing -- indeed. What I'd like to see are the following:
Chart of OS unit sales in 99, 98, AND 97. This would tell us what was not said in the article: did the flat share for NT represent a cooling off? I expect that NT's share _had_ probably been growing steadily.
Chart of OS $ sales in 99, 98, AND 97. This would tell us whether NT has kept share by dropping prices (I think so, if I remember events of the past year correctly) or despite raising prices. We'd also be able to see the Linux $ growth more clearly, and see whether popularity = ability to command higher prices, which many suspect is not the case with commodity open-source.
Microsoft must be frustrated as hell: they spent all this money to get into the high-buck server OS market, only to arrive after Linux has turned it into the low-buck server OS market!
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.