Linux Market: Absolutes / Percentages / Trends

vincecate writes "In their 10-K filing, Microsoft says that Linux server units rose slightly faster on an absolute basis than Windows server units in fiscal 2004. To project the trends it is helpful to look at the percentages. Some Gartner Inc. statistics report Linux server unit shipments are up 61% giving it 9.5% of the overall market share. Windows has a much larger base, so it can get the same absolute unit growth with a much lower percentage. Gartner expects Linux to continue growing faster and have more than 1/2 of the new server shipment market by the end of 2008."

Comments

YEAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

COME ON TUX! W00T!

I little reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine, if you will, you are in Oklahoma City in 1995, in a place of business very near the Murrah building. Your city is devastated, some of your friends are killed, some of their children are killed, everyone is filled with grief and disgust and has to pick up the pieces. It's horrible, and you're frightened. Bill Clinton comes to town soon after, and is shown in countless press photos looking sorrowful and resolute. He vows to avenge the deaths of innocent Oklahomans. *Rather than catching McVeigh and Nichols*, though, he starts a war with a small African nation with a slimy dictator and an important oil source. He claims there are "direct links" between this dictator and the bomb plotters and sends his cabinet hither and yon to spread the word. When intelligent people around the world begin to piece together the absurdity of Clinton's claims, and even the major media begin to become hostile to him, it's time to find a distraction. Thus he declares we must have a constitutional amendment (I dunno, say ... ) denying first amendment rights (second too) to child pornographers. Oh, and he raises your taxes too. Meanwhile all sorts of partisans stand up and praise him on TV, day after day, as a "tough leader" blah blah blah. Every time you see them, you remember, your friends are dead, and their killers are running around the world, probably plotting future mayhem. What are they TALKING about, you wonder.

So then it's time for reelection, and his party chooses ... Oklahoma City, specially changing the usual timing in order to coincide with the anniversary of the bombing, for its convention. Your chamber of commerce asks you to make a few sacrifices in order to make his delegates comfortable. A Dem has never carried the vote in OK City in a hundred years, so you're not the slightest bit comfortable with these people.

Well ... you could just take it and try to make the best of it, even though the TV broadcasting of the convention, which alludes to the tragedy early and often, accompanied by speeches that sound heartfelt but are solemnly intoned by people who've done next to nothing to help your city, all makes you want to vomit.

Or you could get together with your friends, who also have suffered and are also angry and fed up, and make a little noise. (OK, it's only Oklahoma City, so instead of hundreds of thousands you gather in mere hundreds.)

All right, I made up this scenario - in truth Clinton's folks found the perpetrators, tried them, and punished them. It's kind of a loony and far-fetched story, but I betcha there are plenty of New Yorkers for whom the *real* story of 9/11, and what George W. Bush did about it, and how the Republicans are seeking to exploit it, seems more like fiction (or a very, very bad dream) than fact.

Re:I like linux

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm an excellent software engineer"

You don't sound like one.

Re:Fast typist? Or prewritten?

[I confirm I'm not a]

Earlier today the same poster (SlashdotHiveMind) posted a long diatribe about problems with Mandrake - to a discussion about VoIP in the UK. I have a feeling this rant may have been pre-composed by a site with a curious dislike for slashdot. But hey! Prove me wrong, SlashdotHiveMind!

Just buy a mac :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother with Linux? You can have Unix and the number 2 platform for fantastic Microsoft products: Word, Internet Explorer and Excel. Plus they're hardware is the fastest PC on the planet Just buy a Mac!

Besides, it can run apache !!! :-)

Re:Unix replaced on large scale

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true. Tech News Live has an excellent article about Fortune 500 companies making big switches to Linux. Pretty cool.

Re:stats

[Anonymous Coward]

27.9% of statistics are made up.

I call bullshit.

Re:Surprised? No

[Anonymous Coward]

International Space Station?

[OT] Don't you mean the GNU/BSDs?

[leonbrooks]

Or perhaps you should be writing BSD/GNU/Linux, since a goodly share (possibly most: think about PostFix, Apache, SendMail, PostgreSQL, BIND, XFree86 and the zillion or so other most-used apps which are BSD-or-similar licenced) of the software in a distro uses a BSD-ish licence.

I'm personally a fan of the GPL, and licence all of my own creations under it by default, and do appreciate the GNU tools forming a significant part of a distro - but "GNU/Linux" is a ridiculous and cumbersome assertion.

Mind you, I'd find "BSD/Windows" or "GNU/ServicesForUnix" deeply amusing.

Re:I like linux

[Anonymous Coward]

" I happen to agree with you "

Slashbot Hive-Mind (810267) is just a troll. He copied and pasted a text from linuxsucks.org.
You've been caught :-P