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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).""
...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 $20bn. Clearly the importance of air has been overrated in recent years. In fact sales execs at Coca Cola have already been in discussion with publishers of biology textbooks in an attempt to replace unimportant chapters on respiration with new chapters on the metabolisation of Coca Cola products.
-- SIGFPE
It hasn't occured to any of you that many people don't have broadband and therefore prefer to actually buy the product instead of downloading it for weeks?
No doubt. This year, I've paid for my copy of Slackware 8.1, Lycoris Desktop LX, and joined Mandrake Club. Apparently there are other people out there that use, and love Linux, but they are still cheapasses.
These are the same people that would never buy Windows anyway, but would rather pirate it. What does the Microsoft sign say in computer parts stores? 3 out of 4 OSs are pirated.
So what does this research show? It shows squat. Linux still doesn't have the luxury of being preinstalled in retail major manufacturers desktop PCs. Microsoft only sells Windows to large companies that it is able to audit, as well as preinstalled Windows PCs that ship to retail stores.
And the rest of the world is still a bunch of cheapskates. If you don't want to buy it... Don't use it. Mod my down if you wish- if you are angry, but keep in mind that it is the truth.
Poll
25% of all business software is pirated? Does that count home users?
I've seen reports similar to this apples-and-oranges comparison (revenue from free software vs. proprietary) for the last couple of years, but the last figures I've been able to find that actually mean something (market share, or how many computers out there are actually running this or that OS) are for the year 2000.
That year, M$ 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