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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."

1 of 611 comments (clear)

  1. 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.