Slashdot Mirror
Apache down, IIS up
Doctor Memory writes "Netcraft's June 2006 web server survey is out, and it shows IIS taking a dramatic upturn, at the expense of Apache. One of the biggest reasons cited is domain registrar Go Daddy switching to IIS for the domains it "parks". The report does go on to note that IIS is also making solid gains in active sites (including some large blog hosts), and further notes that it appears that large hosting companies are dropping Linux." Statistics are fun to play with, of course, but note that Apache's market share is approximately 30% higher than IIS's at the moment.
Just a thought, but Microsoft is probably as primed as ever to move aggressively on the Web Server market. Why not sooner? For one thing they've been busy locking down or trying to lock down everything else and manage the legal and foreign consortium attacks.
And, the first few generations of IIS weren't hardened. While Microsoft can (and has) dominated markets with non-superior products (not trolling, not saying "inferior", just not the best of breed), Apache got the classical head start on Microsoft, not necessarily (if ever) assurance of ultimate victory.
I've read articles, heard people talk -- it's hard to sort fact from fiction -- but I've heard stories of Microsoft coming in with big dollars and technical help to convert high profile and LARGE targets (Go Daddy, perhaps?) to their Web Server technology.
How do you resist that? If I had a large company and had ANY issues with Apache (who doesn't have any issues with any technology?, there's always something), I'd find it tempting to accept overtures from Microsoft.... "We'll come in and convert you to IIS, AND we'll help you do it, AND we'll give you money. All you have to do is brag on it in return."
I cringe just a little when I hear reassurances like (from the slashdot summary): "but note that Apache's marketshare is approximately 30% higher than IIS's at the moment..." I remember using that as reason to be confident about the browser market... there was a time when Microsoft IE's share was less than 5%. We all know how that bad boy ended.
If this is what Microsoft is doing (and IMO I suspect it is) this smells of once again abusing their monopoly in OS to extend their control of new markets at the expense of fair competition.
Doesn't seem to matter much if it's true, the current administration (in general) has shown little interest or appetite in reining Microsoft in.
Statistics are fun to play with, of course, but note that Apache's marketshare is approximately 30% higher than IIS's at the moment.
Thank God. Why does it seem like if your favorite server software lost too much market share to Microsoft, you would pretty much be emasculated? Do geeks latch on to software like jocks latch on to sports teams, or what? No matter what is said, it always has to be punctuated by "but my team is the best." Sometimes OSSers have more in common with Christian Evangelicals and cheeseheads than geeks...
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Thankfully, MS can only make so many gains this way. It's not like they can pay large percentages of the industry to switch over. At some point it has to come down to merit, and which server sys admins prefer to use.
These numbers are meaningless.
What possible difference could it make to me whether godaddy parks domains with IIS or apache? If godaddy's choice moves the stats in a significant way, then the stats aren't meaningful.
If this is what Microsoft is doing (and IMO I suspect it is) this smells of once again abusing their monopoly in OS to extend their control of new markets at the expense of fair competition.
Going into a business and offering to help convert to IIS isn't abusing its OS monopoly. They don't have anywhere near a monopoly on server OSs anyway. But of course I agree Microsoft is using its financial power and businesses shouldn't be quick to oblige.
Doesn't seem to matter much if it's true, the current administration (in general) has shown little interest or appetite in reining Microsoft in.
In fact one of the very first things Bush did when he entered the White House was remove all of the DOJ lawyers on the Microsoft monopoly case who had any legal experience with monopolies. Young lawyers replaced those already working on the case. And the expert independant counsil was fired without any explanation. Bush intentionally sabotaged the case against Microsoft.
Developers: We can use your help.
I'm afraid I have to disagree.
It's not like they can pay large percentages of the industry to switch over.
What makes you think they can't? They certainly have the scratch, and as they've shown in the past, they're not at all averse to taking large financial hits to ruin a competitor.
At some point it has to come down to merit, and which server sys admins prefer to use.
Sure, until your PHB strolls in and declares that "we're switching to Microsoft!". Remember, Microsoft doesn't have to buy^H^H^Hconvince you, they just have to convince the guy who holds the purse strings.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I can't fathom why large hosting providers would switch unless something is happening under the radar. Even then, I've managed both Apache and IIS. IIS by far requires more of a hands on approach and Apache is far more versatile in what exactly you can do with it.
I've rolled my own self-healing scripts that manage my Apache servers and warn me if something is amiss. Our IIS servers can be a pain at times...
Yes it is interesting. Why would you pay for a system that just parks domains? These are static pages that don't carry much traffic. I have to wonder just how many copies of IIS are running to serve those parked domains? Five maybe? .net and asp. With Ruby on Rails, PHP, and Python being so popular that one may be hard sell.
As everybody with a brain will say, so what? For Microsoft to win this one big they need to get everyone to move to
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
*.blogspot.com should be counted as together, same with typepad.com. With all of the spam blogs created to boost google rankings, these should be counted collectively so as to err on the side of caution.
At some point it has to come down to merit, and which server sys admins prefer to use.
.and the world will ignore you.
Build a better mouse trap . .
Market an inferior mouse trap and get rich.
Ever notice that car companies tout the fact that their product is the number one seller in something or other? Why do they do that when what someone else buys doesn't actually have anything to do with my taste and needs?
Because it works. The great masses are herd animals. They instinctively incline to doing what they see others doing. This is an overall positive virtue in a tribe seeking tribal survival. It is also extremely easy to exploit.
Back in the day sysadmins were taken largely from the highly educated, highly cynical, highly independent portion of the population, motivated by their own drummer, the computers themselves. Nowadays most of them are just typical examples of herd members who got into computers because that's what they saw everyone else doing; and, of course, that's "where the money was."
They can be led. And if they can't be led, they can be ordered.
KFG
For the most part, the general Internet hosting market is pretty much the worthless segement of the market. Yes, this is an area where Apache/LAMP dominates, but mainly only because it's cheap for ISPs to offer the services and there's a ton of pre-cooked forum/ecomm/blog packages out there.
.NET much more often than Perl or PHP. (C) IIS is very very common on the Intranet, even for Java stuff.
When you get into custom developed sites, there's a few things to note -- (A) A large percentage run behind firewalls and will never be counted by Netcraft. (B) People tend to use Java or
The truth is nobody cares what GoDaddy uses to park domains. Maybe it's a technical test of IIS in some fashion, but is it really worth it for Microsoft to convert sites that aren't doing anything? Windows/IIS will never compete in the $20/month free PHP package market, so it's not really worth bothering about.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Apache is easy to use. There are a billion and one admins who know how to configure it. It's fast, extensible, and runs on Windows to boot. Why the hell would you want to run IIS if you're already running Apache? I have worked extensively in the hosting industry, and let me say that customers on IIS + ASP have many, many more problems than those running on an Apache + PHP/Perl based system.
In a web server environment, Windows costs more than Linux, period. Administration is more complex, downtime is more frequent (Windows requires you to reboot for a large number of security fixes,) site intrusions more destructive and harder to remove, and Windows Server 2003 gets very expensive in a server farm. Web hosting is a bottom dollar business; companies are trying to reduce IT costs, not raise them.
Windows is well suited for many environments. Web hosting is not one of them.
So tell me again how I should have stuck it out and gone down with the company. I go around talking principles and freedom, I go broke. I stick the word "Microsoft" on my marketing materials, and I make money. Go ahead. Argue with that. Tell me how I should have been happy to lose my house, my car, every dime of my savings, and all the other crap I would have lost riding the open source handbasket.
I left a high paying Microsoft-related job for a low paying open source job. And I'm much happier now. You obviously invested all of your time and money in the wrong market. Don't blame your own failure on open source. That's childish.
Screw you people, I know who butters my bread.
You don't butter your own bread? You apparently don't own your own company for the pleasure of being independant. And if you think you must work with Microsoft to make a living then you're very ignorant.
Developers: We can use your help.
If you don't have the time to check your facts, you shouldn't be saying that another guy is wrong.