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Linux Sales Down, But...
An anonymous reader writes " News.com has a story about combined Linux revenues reaching $80 million for 2001. "The Linux operating system market, from a revenue perspective, accounts for one half of 1 percent of the total operating system revenue each year, or roughly two days' worth of Microsoft's operating system revenue," [IDC Analyst] Gillen said. "On the second day of January, Microsoft had generated more operating system revenue than the Linux community (will for the entire year).""
I believe sales are down as people have learned that Linux can be downloaded...for free!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
At some point in time Nvidia was making one tenth of a percent of 3DFx... I don't see Nvidia doing too badly right now...
Just because Microsoft is making a lot of money, doesn't mean that this will always be true. Their business plan is fundamentally flawed... who in their right mind will rent software? And who in their right mind actually agrees with Microsoft's EULA? Right now they make way more money than Linux, but if Linux wasn't a product line that was profitable, then companies like IBM and Corel would not have put any energy into it...
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
The whole point of free (as in beer) software is that you don't *need* money to get it... I'd much rather see numbers pointing to actual in-use comparisons than money comparisons.
It amazes me that so many media people still don't get that you can't measure Linux's success in dollars and cents!
...analysts have been studying revenue generated by sales of air. Apparently total US sales of breathable air is close to zero. On the other hand annual revenue for Coca Cola is around $20bn. Clearly the importance of air has been overrated in recent years. In fact sales execs at Coca Cola have already been in discussion with publishers of biology textbooks in an attempt to replace unimportant chapters on respiration with new chapters on the metabolisation of Coca Cola products.
-- SIGFPE
For all that the BSA would have you believe otherwise, the vast majority of computers running Microsoft operating systems are running paid-for licensed copies.
For all that Red Hat and others would hope, the vast majority of computers running Linux are running unpaid-for licensed copies.
Even if the same number of computers ran each operating system, the Microsoft operating system ``market'' would be much larger, as a result of simple math.
With this overwhelming inherent disadvantage, that Linux is even on the charts at all is impressive.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
How did they assemble the information for the survey?
What kind of sales were included?
When it comes to Linux a lot of the sales do not derive from the sale of shrinkwrapped packages, but from consultancy services. Sometimes software is service, but these kind of surveys seldom acknowledge that. Sure, you do need help to install Microsoft Windows too, but in the Linux case the installment service might be the only cost associated with the installment, thus scewing the figures quit much.
Regards,
Mikael
Pawlo.com
$26,000,000 / $0 = infinity !
Stupid "It doesn't cost anything, so it must be worthless" MBAs.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
But you can't compare revenue generated by a FREE operating system with revenue generated by a rather costly operating system. The goals are completely different.
Linux is free. What about usage?
It's the very same thing as moby said recently, he questioned why the worth of music is measured by the amount of sales. I agree with him that the music that really matters and defines our culture is not the charts.
Yeah... but moby also said that he still wants to make a living selling music.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
I believe that is an Incorrect analogy.
For NBC, ABC and fox generate revenue (and a hell of a lot of it) based on viewers... in your analogy, linux should be generating lots of revenue since a lot of people have it installed.
The problem is that Microsoft gets money upfront for their OS sales, while tv stations generate money based on views (or 'use' if we push the analogy a bit.)
Now if we could get advertisers to buy 30 second commercial breaks in your linux productivity software and/or games, then perhaps we could get those revenues up a bit... But I don't want commercials poping up while I work, it's bad enough while I'm surfing the web...
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I've seen reports similar to this apples-and-oranges comparison (revenue from free software vs. proprietary) for the last couple of years, but the last figures I've been able to find that actually mean something (market share, or how many computers out there are actually running this or that OS) are for the year 2000.
That year, M$ server OSes had a 41% market share, with around 30% for Linux. It's interesting that no one has ever released the figures for 2001. Apparently IDC knows what those figures are, but won't say.
WHY DON'T ANY OF THESE SURVEY COMPANIES WANT TO TALK ABOUT MARKET SHARE??? Is it because M$ is going down the toilet and they're afraid it will start an investor panic if the word gets out? Is M$ PAYING them not to release the information? Is it just that nobody cares and no one wants to know?
I'm an inquiring mind, and I want to know....
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
an anonymous reader writes "News.com has a story about combined (legitamite) Windows downloads reaching 0 for 2001. "The Windows operating system market, from a download perspective, accounts for 0 percent of the total operating system downloads each year, or roughly no days' worth of Linux's operating system downloads," [IDC Analyst] Gillen said. "On the second day of January, Linux had generated more operating system downloads than the Windows community (will for the entire year).""
;)
So, your point was that more people buy Windows than Linux. Wow. Anyone could have figured that one out. Why not compare the number of Linux installations to the number of Windows installations? Wouldn't that be a more appropriate benchmark of Linux popularity? As for the commercial side of Linux, I don't think anyone claims to be as competative as Microsoft. Why aren't there meaningful co-relations (eg. 10% more Linux sales than last year)?
Oh well. I don't do things 'cause they are popular, so this means nothing to me.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Or those willing to vote with their pocketbook instead of their attitude.
Linux: not just a lifestyle choice anymore.
illegitimii non ingravare
Anyone that successfully installs Linux and uses it for a short while will
A. Not need to upgrade in a long time.
B. Realize how to upgrade for free.
This is true for the server market, where the OS is still relatively detached from what's running on top of it, and there's a lot of incentive not to change that much.
In the desktop market, both of your premises are off base:
a) people want new stuff: Microsoft sold tens of millions of copies of XP within a short time of releasing it. People regularly buy new cellphones for size, color, or something else they could probably get along without.
b) at this stage upgrading is not easy at all. I upgrade KDE fairly regularly, and even though I use binary packages built specifically for my Mandrake distro (the supposedly user-friendly one), I still have to slog through the dependency swamp every time I install it. And God forbid you should try to build source....Even installing a new version of OpenOffice involves dealing
Recall also that the three or so years that a decent number of people have been making a go at Linux-as-a-business is a very short time. Much of what will happen has yet to happen. So the "analysis" by IDC is basically speculation on what a very short history means for a long future.
There seems to be a myth that money doesn't matter to the development of Linux. On the contrary, the distros actually do quite a bit of bug-fixing and programming. The less money they have, the less will be spent on it. More money and more revenues mean faster growth and more options. So, a loss of revenue is a bad thing for Linux.
Linux right now is in a growth phase. Regardless of the amount of revenue recieved, the number of computers running Linux has increased in the last year. Significant progress has been made on the desktop with KDE and Gnome. Programs such as OpenOffice and Mozilla have helped take up the application slack. Further, things like Code-Weaver and Ogg have helped advance the usability of Linux on the desktop and open source in general. It goes without saying that Linux has a significant server/high performance presence.
I think that there are less shrink-wrapped linux distros being purchased. It takes marketing money to put packages on retail shelves, and with the loss of funding most Linux providers don't want to do that. Caldera, Corel, and Red Hat all seem to have left the retail market. Still, I think more revenue is being generated by the overall Linux market than the story says.
Linux total sales == 1% Total OS sales
Linux sales == 2 days MS OS sales
2 days MS OS sales == 1% Total OS sales
365 days MS OS sales == 182,5% total sales
note that other OS vendors (specially unix ones) has
some participation. (less quantity, more expensive OSes).
This can only mean that there are some people paying
the costumers to get there OS to generate -82,5% of total
sales.
Ok, I've heard everybody mention the fact that Linux is free and that is why the numbers are low. I've heard others rebut the fact that not everybody sees Linux as free because it costs money in your average retail store. However...
1. I would dare to say the majority of Linux installs is of free ISOs (sorry, no evidence), which would still affect the low sales figure dramatically.
2. For those who use dialup and wish to purchase Linux, most distributions can be found for $5 or less, also contributing to low sales figures.
Also, do we know what "linux sales down" means? Does it mean retail purchases or anytime someone shells out money for Linux? What about expensive systems where a vendor version of Linux is included?
For example, if I buy a Sun Cobalt RAQ server right now, I get a nice server with Cobalt Linux installed on it. Sun has sold me the system and included a version of Linux with the sale of the system. Did the study give a dollar value to the Linux OS that was sold with my server in this case? I doubt it. There are a helluva lot of web hosting providers that use RAQs.
What about embedded devices?
On the second day of January, Linux had generated more Love and Community Spirt than the Microsoft Corporation (will for the entire year).""
Some buy it in a fancy bottle, some drink it out of the tap. A fancy bottle has to make it better water, right? Same with software.