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Linux Outpacing Macintosh On Desktops
An anonymous reader points out this article in the International Herald Tribune about corporate acceptance of computers running GNU/Linux, which includes this snippet: "Linux is already outpacing Macintosh on desktops: "Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst for International Data Corp., said Linux had a 3.9 percent share of desktops worldwide, outpacing Macintosh's 3.1 percent." The article does not specify from where Kuznetsky draws either figure, but can it be true that Linux systems currently outnumber Macintoshes?
uh..not to be the bearer of bad news or anything:
YDL
oh, and that's not the only distro...
Tim Dorr
Owner/Manger
A Small Orange
Umm yeah, so mac users can switch to linux. What I meant (when I posted as anonymous coward because I was too lazy to login) was that the majority of people who are switching operating systems are going to be Windows-to-linux users, because the majority of people right now are running Windows. You can't go Windows-to-Mac using the same hardware like you can with Linux. (As of right now...anyone remember that story on here a few days ago about the x86 port of OSX? Linux is a lot easier to switch to. You can go back to windows if you think it sucks, with no hardware changing involved.
OneStat says otherwise.
http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1706
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
FWIW, Apple shipped around 808,000 Macs last quarter. If you look at their recent quarterly numbers, they're shipping about the same number per quarter so that's 3.2 million units per year, give or take a few 10k.
And that's on top of an installed base of at least 25 million.
Anyone have similar, hard numbers on Linux installations? I realize it's substantially harder to extrapolate (multiple vendors, free to download, etc.) but physical media sales might be a decent indicator.
If you RTFA it says "CORPORATE USERS". ALl you Apple zealots stop pointing out that macs are used in art/sound/secretarian jobs. Face it, in the corporate world, you will always have IT guys who run their Linux, but you won't always have art guys running Macs. It's two entirely differrent cultures.
I'm not surprised either. KDE and Gnome are easily set up to behave almost indistinguishably from Windows--non-techies often can't tell the difference. And Linux comes with a complete suite of applications--OpenOffice and Mozilla really do satisfy the needs of most users.
The biggest problem with Linux, in my opinion, is the excruciatingly painful way in which drivers and other kernel extensions are installed--often involving recompiling the kernel. Even the most painless driver distributions (e.g., nVidia) require much more computer know-how to install than the average user can muster. In corporate settings, this doesn't matter that much--the IT department probably likes it that people can't just plug things in. But in the small business and home market, it matters big time.
The penetration rates given by IDG and Gartner are, essentially, made up numbers.
I've been in a position to deal with these analysts, give them information, and observe how they work. They are no different from Wall Street Soothsayers who predict whether a stock is going to go up or down-- except that the Wall Street types are MORE scientific.
For instance, when counting mac hardware sales, they do not count mail orders sales, sales at the apple online store, sales at local apple retailers or sales at independent apple dealers. When they say "Apple has 3.1% of the market" they are really saying "Apple has %3.1 percent of the Retail x86 Market" which is pretty absurd since apple doesn't seel x86 machines. They only look at the distribution channels that x86 manufacturers use, they ignore the majority of Mac sales.
And that was the case in the one instance where they actually gave the source for their data... usually they never provide a backing research, or any explanation where they get their numbers.
As a reasonably scientific person, this data is bunk. It is unsupported, unreviewed (peer review? Ha!) And, of course, it comes from companies who are paid by Microsoft to create a marketing perception that supports Microsoft's' agendas.
I'm not going to say I know for sure what the market share is for Apple or Linux machines, but its worth pointing out that Apple machines have a service life of 2-4 times that of the average x86 PC-- the quality is better, and its shocking what the 2 year failure rate is for the average PC.
Furthermore, I suspect Linux boxes are kept around a lot longer as well -- though we have no way of knowing which ones are used on the desktop and which ones in the server room.
So, these fabricated "annual sales" numbers are irrelevant on the face of them-- the TAM (total addressable market) is going to be much different because people don't replace their computers every year.. but they do buy software every year. IF you're a mac software maker, you know that there are far more customers out there, as people tend to keep their macs for years. Annual sales figures aren't that relevant.
Anyway, I think all of us should make sure we don't take these numbers seriously. And we should not repeat them, and should write to every (idiot) journalist who quotes them pointing out that they are false. Just as %95 of the computers out there are NOT x86, these figures for linux adoption are wrong as well.
These numbers are not scientific, they aren't even "facts". They are, essentially, fabrications.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Upenn just set up all first year Ph.D. with linux boxens...
I am always sceptical of numbers from market research companies - whether they be from Minitel, Gartner Dataquest, IDC, Datamonitor, or whoever.
Why? Because I used to work for a market research company.
We were a bunch of 22 year old kids, a year out of university working to such tight deadlines that we just made up the numbers. And guess what? Management had no problems with us doing that.
My favourite story was when I was reseaching a certain market in South America. Because I don't speak Spanish, I decided the way to work out the size of the market was to use some (probably wrong) number for the US, divide by the number people in the US, multiply by the number of people in Venezuela, and apply - say - a 80% discount.
Unfortunately, some where in my Excel formula I had managed to multiply the market size by 10. So, Venezuela appeared to have the largest market in South America.
When I realised weeks later, did I bring this to my boss's attention and risk a telling off? No, I just forgot about it.
Anyway, four months later I had left this job and got myself a proper one, and was reading a magazine. *Another* market research company was touting that "Venezuela [x] market biggest in South America!..."
I was astonished. We hadn't done any real work, and another market research company had just copied our 'work' verbatim.
And here ends my tale as to why Slashdot readers should avoid paying to much attention to market research.
--- My dad's political betting
I don't think it's fair to compare home-built systems with Mac systems now really, is it? What would be a fair comparison would be to look at an equivalently specced Dell machine or some such and compare with the Mac; granted it may still be cheaper but at least it'll be a fair test.
I just noticed this conversation. I'm sorry that I'm late to the party. I guess we all have to work sometime.
The quote refers to IDC's research on _paid shipments of client operting environment software_ not to shipments of desktop systems. Furthermore, paid shipments do not include free downloads or replicas made of either free downloads or paid copies.
At the time, our initial findings showed that Linux held approximately 3.9% share of the worldwide paid shipments of client operating environment software. As we futher refined the data, we were forced to reduce that figure.
A press release is being prepared which will announce the release of the report.
Dan Kusnetzky