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New Numbers on Linux Market Share Soon

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the pc-nielsens dept.

prostoalex writes "New numbers on Linux market share are due this week. As far as global PC market is concerned, Gartner claims 5% of all PCs shipped this year ran Linux OS, although by the time the PCs were actually on the user's desk, only 2% of them run Linux. In the server world IDC estimates that Linux-powered servers comprise 28.3% of all server sales in 2004."

3 of 611 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Excuse me by vondo · · Score: 4, Informative
    My experience is the opposite. Linux (Mandrake) installs perfectly, it auto-configures the printer and the scanner. You reboot, get all the updates, reboot again, and keep on sailing. XP takes two reboots for the install, then about 3 more for the updates (and several of those have to be installed seperately). Granted, that's a lot better than Win 98 where I lost count after 8 or 9 reboots to get all the drivers installed and updated on a machine I built.

    Now of course, there are some machines where a linux install is a REAL pain, but most on "desktop" hardware sail right along.

  2. Re:Ship % should underestimate, not overestimate.. by UserChrisCanter4 · · Score: 5, Informative

    If I'm not mistaken, Dell offered business users a choice of some random flavor of Linux or FreeDOS preinstalled on their computers.

    The logic was thusly: Licensing agreements force them to ship the computer with SOME OS on it, but a lot of businesses already have a Windows site license. Because the price of the non-windows Dells was slightly lower than effectively purchasing the license a second time, the companies order these computers with one of those two OSes preinstalled, then wipe the drive and install WinXP/2000.

    So while there are a small number of users purchasing their computers with Windows pre-installed and migrating to Linux, that number is effectively buried by businesses doing just the opposite.

  3. Think "prostitution". by khasim · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gartner is in the business of selling "reports" and "studies".

    Most of the "reports" and "studies" you'll see from Gartner are linked from vendor's websites. Vendors who paid for the report. So the vendors use those "reports" and "studies" as marketing materials.

    I've only seen Gartner stuff used to justify a decision that has already been made. And, IMO, that's all they're good for.