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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.
are they happy ?
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.
Linux sales down, but the RIAA believes that piracy is the cause.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
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
> On the second day of January, Microsoft had generated more operating system revenue than the Linux community (will for the entire year).
The Microsoft crowd must have been too hung over on January 1st.
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.
Same for the operating system, what is it worth for humanity and our social system? How much of our resources we would have needed to spent (to microsoft) if it wouldn't be there? What money would the companies miss that use linux?
And note again becase it's free does not mean it costs anybody a job or is evil. After all not a single job should be just a occupational therapy.
(thats where the anti GPL comments fail, or where the adversaries miss the global sight. A job should be good for something, if we can save the work then better leave it, and leave us all more freetime, spent the time on the beach, etc.
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
I'm sure this article only applies to the 5% of Americans who are buying Manchicken Loonix for the first time to run on their desktop PC to feel awesome. The thought of just downloading the ISO never crossed their minds.
;-)
So in essence, this article really only applies to the mentally handicapped.
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.
It doesn't make any sense to compare the "revenues" of a priced product and a free product.
What next? A startling revelation that people all over America are paying for HBO and Cinemax, but many are getting local networks like NBC, ABC and Fox for FREE?
All your favorite sites in one place!
Its not that Linux is free. Its more that the Microsoft flogging model of required and forced upgrades fails miserably in Linux. 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.
[political rant mode on]
"While experts still can assemble the required Linux components for free and create the same package that companies sell, customers will be leery of using that sort of customized software, Gillen said. "
I like how people feel no shame in telling what customers WILL do.
Reports like this are very usefull as an indication of what the news organization that reports them's position is. This tells me that news.com is a BigSoftware mouthpiece.
[/political rant mode on]
'On the second day of January, Microsoft had sucked more money out of their customers than the Linux community will for the entire year'.
Is an alternate way of looking at it. Which the customers appreciate.
Seriously tho, RedHat and company knows that they will never ever make anywhere close to what Microsoft has made selling software. But the idea is to make computing cheaper and freer, not to suck customers dry and invent new exciting buisness 'methods'.
The good news is that sales are up, especially for "client" computers.
The real danger to Microsoft isn't Linux's ability to generate profits, the real danger is Linux's ability to commoditize software. Eventually Microsoft's customers are going to learn that they can get more for less.
...is an interesting way of looking at things, but I wouldn't put too much stock into it.
:-)
For instance, I guess most people say that in politics winning is everything. But quite a lot can be said about losing as well. In 2000 every single Libertarian candidate in my county lost, and most of them lost big--I think the max one got was 7% of the vote (now that I think about it, I was that candidate
However, one county comissioner's race, the clerk of courts race, the county treasurer's race, and I think a judgeship's race went unexpectedly for the democrats. Our LP candidates threw almost all of the county for the Democrats in spite of the fact that it's a strong Republican county. For a 3rd party candidate, there's actually a victory to be had in throwing a race. Next time you campaign, the candidates take you seriously, not to mention the people who won with "your help."
My point in saying that is, I'm sure that MS takes that 1% of their revenue lost very seriously, because I suspect that it matters quite a lot more to them than just 1% of their operations, in the same way that a Republican candidate who lost the election with 48% of the vote takes an LP'er who got less than 2% of the vote very seriously.
(ok...ok...it's an apples to mustard greens comparison, i'm just saying that there are lots of ways of looking at that data)
I bet those 10 million users are thinking, "You mean I could have gotten this for FREE?? Dammit!"
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
As many have already pointed out, this is a useless piece of information. I work for a company that can only afford to do what it is doing because GNU/Linux exists. How does the revenue of my company get counted in this "revenue" figure? How many other companies are able to do more for less because they are starting to use GNU/Linux and Free/OpenBSD and Apache and on and on?
The revenue of companies that manufacture goods, while not insignificant, is less important than the network effects on the economy of infrastructure products like operating systems. These "second order" effects are often much greater than the first order revenue. Especially when we are talking about productivity tools (as opposed to pure consumer products like toothbrushes and deodorant).
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
"The Linux operating system market, from a revenue perspective, accounts for one half of 1 percent of the total operating system revenue each year"
"On the second day of January, Microsoft had generated more operating system revenue than the Linux community (will for the entire year)."
You're kidding!
You mean that Linux, which is free, generates less revenue than a commercial OS, which costs money? Wow, how long did these guys spend figuring this one out?
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
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?