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.
Stumbled across this tidbit from a NewsForge article on the Go Daddy move:
So, it appears that IIS is the webserver of choice for websites that don't actually need to be viewed. Hmm...
Also from the NewsForge article:
That sounds an awful lot like a 'yes' to me...sure, I can't prove it, but if Microsoft didn't pay or offer incentives, I don't think Adelman would have had any trouble making that known.
So, basically, it looks like Microsoft paid Go Daddy to switch to IIS for their domains, the vast majority of which were parked anyway, in a rather transparent attempt to massage the numbers. Quelle suprise.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Yes, Netcraft has confirmed that Apache is now dead. Thank you.
well, after the apache person got hired by google to write GoogleOnLineCalculator and GoogleOnLineMinesweeper, what'd you expect?
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...
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
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.
Oooohhhkay.
So, after much years of expensive research dollars, Microsoft IE server has FINALLY become a highly optimized and finely honed webserver that serves just a single static page?
Most lopsided lie (um,,, I meant statistic) I've ever seen.
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.
"Statistics are fun to play with, of course, but note that Apache's marketshare is approximately 30% higher than IIS's at the moment. "
Statistics are fun to play with, of course, but note that --INSERT ANOTHER STATISTIC HERE EVEN THOUGH IVE JUST MADE AN INSINUATION THAT STATISTICS ARE TO BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT--
user@internet:~$ sudo apachectl start
Password:
Starting httpd:
OK, try it now.
The metrics from Netcraft are hard to read with respect to OS. They don't publish a free OS graph that I've found, and you can't assume that any particular percentage of Apache hosts are running on any particular OS.
All this tells you is that the majority of "sites" (that being a nebulous term) are using Apache on some OS as at least their front-line Web servers. They might still be back-ending to whatever, and that would not show up.
Personally, I don't think you can use Netcraft for any purpose other than to say "IIS and Apache are the most popular Web servers."
The parent seems to discredit the survey by saying "It is fun to play with statistics." Obviously trying to cast doubt on the numbers by saying that they can be moved around to suite ones needs.
However, since this survey is done monthly, the question is has it been credible in the past? Is the survey only being called in to question over it's validity now, because it reports on good news for Microsoft? Are we really so eager to turn on anything that provides positive news of any kind for Microsoft?
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.
And you know what else is up? IIS exploits hitting my apache log files... :)
I also get a lot of php 'sploits too but I am seeing an increase in IIS "features" hitting my web servers. Wow, to be so popular... sigh.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Statistics are fun to play with, of course, but note that Apache's marketshare is approximately 30% higher than IIS's at the moment.
Has anyone else noticed that Slashdot is pretty much incapable of publishing any story with so much as a tiny semblance of being pro-Microsoft without taking some sort of potshot somewhere in the summary?
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.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
SecuritySpace.com's web server survey. Of course the methodology is different....
Catch 22
Lt. Col. Korn, XO: All you have to do is be our pal.
Colonel Cathcart: Say nice things about us.
Lt. Col. Korn, XO: Tell the folks at home what a good job we're doing. Take our offer...
Colonel Cathcart: Either that or a court-martial for desertion.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Microsoft's share was closer to Apache's in March of 2002 than it is now. There's no reason to believe it won't plateau or drop off again. There's not even a trend yet (like there was back then) that can lend itself to predictions.
^X^S ^X^C
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...
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..."
Personally, I cringe when I see editors making comments like that up there on the summary, rather than down here with the rest of us.
Apart from that, I agree with you; if one is serious about trying to keep IIS out of the web server business (for whatever reason), then the time to be complacent is when it no longer exists.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
*.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.
Seriously. Who cares about parked domains and what they are on. Parked domains are nothing more than a PR tool. A parked domain coudl be served from a dead simple serve-only-the-parked-page custom binary/script. Anybody relying or relishing how many domains are parked on their software has issues. Particularly since it wouldn't take much for a registrar to "park" a very high number of domains on whatever combo they wished. About the only interesting stat in the Netcraft report is that a little more than half of all "domains" are "parked". Half the domains on the web are nothing more than "for sale" signs by domain name speculators and entities who couldn't buy real webspace.
For those who actually care or might need to know which software serves up the most active domains, a report on just those is more beneficial.
Even then, why does anyone care how many domains are on what software? After all, a domain could be served up by multiple machines running different OS/Software combinations. So those numbers wouldn't be accurate either. Further, for those who may need to know "what server is best" these numbers only add confusion due to irrelevance. If you are setting up a truly large site, you'd better already know your stuff and don't need this kind of 'data'. The only data of this type that would be useful to you would be what the really busy sites run. Even then it also depends on active vs. dynamic.
As far as hostnames running a given OS, this too is not valuable due to key factor assumptions. The assumption underlying this statistic is that more is better. This is beyond mere OS capability. All hosts are not equal. A Linux box running a website(s) on 400MHz Pentium is not comparable to a Windows box on say a DL580, or vica versa. Regardless of OS in this case the DL580 will be capable of serving "more" of whatever it is serving.
The Netcraft web server report is a curious statistic and should be taken as nothing more.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
When netcraft numbers favor Apache/open source, the streamers fly and there's nothing but back patting on how this proves {insert open source alternative here} is a better product.
But soon as MS gets some positive numbers. "OH THOSE ARE ALL INFLATED NUMBERS THAT MEAN NOTHING!"
Guys pick a standard to hold things too and stick to it.
Personally I don't care who's on top, long as what I use works for me.
Gadget News at Gizmo.com
"If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything."
I don't know who said this originally, but it's a great comment.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Where I've worked in the past, it seems that the Web Server of choice follows the Application Server of choice. .Net solution, just because of what seemed "a good deal" at the time. .Net integration part and processing data.
If management find a great application that cheaper to run, and maybe has a great support contract at a low price, they buy into the idea, and don't really bother about the fact that they have to move the front end web server technology from say IIS to Apache.
I've been in a situation when a brilliant Apache / Java / Broadvision combination, was replaced by an IIS /
However in my particular situation, us "Sys Admins" loved apache so much, we decided to leave it in at the front end, to serve media, protect the front end and internal-proxy the IIS data, and then have IIS as the middle layer just doing the
So at the end of the day, Netcraft reports apache, but the real grunt of the work is being done by IIS.
Mike
Now they win over a domain parking service and everyone want to say the statistics are unfairly in their favor? What about all the years those statistics worked against them, I didn't see you complaining then.
I like to work with Apache, but 2k3 server is a large improvement from MS. If MS finally getting their act together on the server front means they win back some of the "Netcraft share" than great.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Google is your friend.
Especially this article from the first page of results: Slap on the wrist? (Salon.com)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now it's only a matter of time before the Apache are forced to live within reservations while their former home lands are turned into McDonald's and Best Buy lined freeways all running IIS. Really sad.
Uhh...you don't run your own business. You work for Microsoft (at least, according to your blog). Don't astroturf; it's unprofessional.
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
Perhaps the growing demand/use of asp based web apps has something to do with the marketshare growth as well.
I know that personally, i'd host my asp apps on a Linux box if chillisoft was more common, but it's tricky to find a host with decent support, and all the features needed to run an asp or asp.net.
This is not the greatest
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.
However, since this survey is done monthly, the question is has it been credible in the past
If you read the link, the largest movement of sites from Apache to IIS was once again at Go Daddy, with over 1.6M hostnames moving from Apache to IIS this month. If you read netcraft news periodically, you'll find that in the past mont they said: The shift is driven by changes at domain registrar Go Daddy, which has just migrated more than 3.5 million hostnames from Linux to Windows. Go Daddy, which had been the world's largest Linux host, is now the world's largest Windows Server 2003 host, as measured by hostnames.
In other words, there's not a "trend". It's just that Go Daddy is switching to Windows.
If you continue reading, Michael van Dijken, Microsoft's Marketing Manager for Hosted Solutions, noted that Go Daddy's migration to Windows Server 2003 follows announcements of expanded relationships between Microsoft and several other major hosters,
In other words, IIS has convinced Go Daddy executives thanks to a whole Marketing Departament for Hosted Solutions. Meanwhile, many other sites are using Apache just because they like it, not because a Marketing departament is trying to convince their executives.
Windows/IIS will never compete in the $20/month free PHP package market, so it's not really worth bothering about.
.NET / C# / SQL Server. With low cost IIS hosting, versions of Visual Studio and SQL Server that are either free or low cost, the features of ASP.NET 2 and DotNetNuke, I probably won't be returning to LAMP any time soon.
That might have been true a few years ago but not now. Have a look at the Windows (and Linux) offerings, including SQL Server, at JodoHost. I'm not connected with them other than as a happy customer. There are plenty of bad Windows hosting companies out there but there are also good ones with prices pretty much the same as LAMP.
I've done a few spare time projects for non-profits. Previously my only realistic choice for these was PHP / MySQL mostly because of hosting and tool costs but my latest project uses
And do you know what I've noticed? I may be totally wrong here, but I don't think IIS even has a mod_rewrite-ish function! I don't know about you, but I rely extensively on mod_rewrite every day – almost all my sites are running a custom PHP/MySQL/mod_rewrite-based setup, and without it the entire thing would fall apart.
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
the story after this one slashdotted an IIS server. Did it run out of bandwidth? Nope...it ran out of memory. lol IIS sucks ass!!!
\ machine.config could not be loaded. Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.
\ machine.config Line: 0
.NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032
http://www.twingalaxies.com/
Error message below:
Server Error in '/' Application.
Configuration Error
Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.
Parser Error Message: The XML file c:\winnt\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\Config
Source Error:
[No relevant source lines]
Source File: c:\winnt\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\Config
Version Information: Microsoft
Problem Report: Access denied to system because of URL Filter Configuration, while attempting to retrieve the URL: http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/search.pl?query =microsoft+bush+DOJ.
:(
Message ID: Blocked by Websense Category: Tasteless
Problem Description: Your system was configured to deny access to this URL.
Possible Problem Cause: Request denied, as specified in the local filter list configuration.
Possible Solution: Traffic to and from the internet is being filtered and logged. Access to this site has been blocked according to * Policy. If there is a compelling business justification for access to this site to be permitted, please present your request to the IT management at your business unit for consideration.
Even Websense is in on the conspiracy, trying to hide it from us!
Me = sad panda
...GoDaddy's revenues fell markedly as people found they could easily break in and setup their own sites at the parked domains without having to pay for them.
At the last place I worked at IBM did the same thing. They wanted us off LAMP and offered to give us 1-year Websphere and DB2 licenses (something like $10,000 per year afterwards!) and they would even re-write all of our web applications at no charge.
So as I'm in the meeting with these guys all I hear them talk about is their technology. Java this and Java that, scalability, DB2, XML addons, etc. It was all very impressive until I asked them a question for which they had no answer.
What business problem does our current technology fail to solve that your new technology can?
The fact is they had no idea. They didn't care at all about our business, only their technology. Our LAMP system already did what we wanted and I communicated to IBM that our business success had nothing to do with technology, but everything to do with the business model behind it. I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft isn't solving any business problems by converting anyone to IIS.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
What, haven't you gotten the memo? One needn't back up anything bad one says about the current administration. Why, I heard that Bush is in league with the Martians in a plot to detonate the Sun!!!!!!!!
Yesterday, I went to start my new job at Microsoft. I arrived just after 9:30 and informed the receptionist I had arrived and needed to be escorted into the building. I filled out my parking form, and went to wait. This began the....
https://www.darklock.com/blog/?p=74All you have to do is *read* the blog, just read.
Yes, IIS is on the rise, but the submission fails to mention that the number of Apache Web servers still far outpaces all other Web server packages -- Apache is still almost double the number of IIS Web servers.
> It's not like they can pay large percentages of the industry to switch over.
What makes you think they can't?
Little things like...oh...the Sherman Antitrust Act, anti-dumping provisions in the WTO, and likely future court rulings and legislation that might result from that sort of behaviour (especially from the EU and Asian countries that are slowly growing more hostile to Microsoft).
It is one thing to offer your your software for free as has been done with IE since the start. Even when Microsoft moved IE from the "Plus! Pack" onto the Windows install CD when they supplanted Win95 with Win95A there was not much to complain about. MS' practices became questionable by the time Win98 came out, when IE became a required part of the OS install and applications started coming out with IE dependencies as this put competitors at a disadvantage. I say questionable because even after a decade it is still a point of debate if such practices should be regulated.
With Windows Server, IIS is right on the OS install CD and is increasingly integrated with the OS and other server software (SQL reporting services, sharepoint, team foundation server, etc). This is reaching the point of being questionable behaviour, however I think the competition has accepted that MS has decided such things as web browsers and HTTP servers are "components" of desktop and server OSes respectively--and it is a bit difficult to complain about it when Linux distributions almost universally bundle such applications with their OS installs too.
as they've shown in the past, they're not at all averse to taking large financial hits to ruin a competitor
Absolutely. However, selling at a loss or giving software away for free (as in beer) is one thing. Bribing your competitor's customers to switch, especially when your competitor is non-commercial, is not only ethically and morally unacceptable to most people--it is almost always illegal too. The most definite line that would be crossed is going from discounts, to give-aways, to actually offering money or gifts to potential customers. At my place of employment, it is made very clear to everyone that exchanging anything but the most nominal gift with potential customers--even if it doesn't involve luring them from a competitor--is an offence punishable by immediate dismissal even on the first offence.
Sure, until your PHB strolls in and declares that "we're switching to Microsoft!".
I feel fortunate that the economic climate where I'm at right now is a job-hunter's market and a person can be selective. Even if it weren't, however, if *my* PHB were to just stroll in and pronounce that we were making major, disruptive IT infrastructure changes without previous consultation with others just because some salesbot from MS offered him some swag then I'd immedately set about updating my resume and finding work elsewhere. Not only do I not like at a job where the opinions and concerns of employees are not considered--it has also been my experience that organisations with managers that "stroll in and declare" such things are destined to fail if they do not change. This goes both ways, by the way--I think that it would be equally as bad if the PHB at an all-MS shop were to stroll in and declare "we are switching to Linux" without any apparent good reason.
I predate TSS, let alone the Internet and my mother was a government mainframe operator before my time. I am not confused.
There was a time when the corporate boss, totally lacking the armament of buzzwords (except maybe "transistor"), did not even have the tools to express an order (within the domain of the article) to a sysadmin/operator. And if the sysadmin didn't like it where he was, he walked. And the boss knew it.
This was power, because a sysadmin could not simply be replaced with another cog. The Register's BOFH is so bitingly funny because he has a real life model in real world situations.
A Fortune 500 CEO would approach the OC as a Greek king would approach the oracle at Delphi; as just another supplicant to be fleeced by mystical powers well beyond his comprehension.
This is why they started buying PCs. Didn't work too well. Just because the boss now had a small, powerful computer of his very own didn't mean he understood a single thing about it.
The boss gained real power over the sysadmin only when the technical "colleges" started pumping out generic, interchangable "sysadmins" in excess of demand, sometime in the mid/late 80s. And hence Dilbert became so bitingly funny because it had real life models in real life situations.
Dilbert dates only from the early 90s.
KFG
Great, first Black Hawk and now Apache :((
If you don't have the time to check your facts, you shouldn't be saying that another guy is wrong.
- 230 sites with a Server: Apache/* header
Apache is used in almost three times more high-traffic sites than IIS. if you're curious what the 115 other sites announced for their http Server: header, it was mostly GWS and Netscape-Enterprise, here are the top five "others":115 sites with some other product in their Server: header
86 sites with a Server: Microsoft-IIS/* header
68 sites with an empty Server: header
17 Netscape-Enterprise
9 Sun-ONE-Web-Server
5 Zeus
5 lighttpd
about sean dreilinger
It's not so much a question of buy-off as it is an offering of free services in exchange for mindshare.
That is the fine line Microsoft historically walks, and has done so with great success in the past. That is why IE is dominant--they took the hit offering it for free to cut the legs out from under Netscape and other competitors. As an aside, they also did it for another reason--IE started life as a Microsoft-branded version of Spyglass Mosaic. BillG absolutely abhors paying royalties based on sales and prefers licensing with a flat-fee. Spyglass insisted on a royalty and becasue MS needed to get a browser out there quickly they "caved" and offered a percentage of revenue. It wasn't long after IE debuted on the Plus! pack that MS released Win95A with IE included for free...and we all know what any percentage of zero dollars is...
The original poster contended MS could pay big companies to switch to them in exchange for positive publicity, which would actually be illegal becasue it goes beond giveaways and deep discounts and ventured into collusion territory. Although there isn't a very solid case against MS for "being generous" there are other things they do that present a strong case that they are abusing their monopoly:
* extensions to standards that only work with their OS (ActiveX, Active Directory...) - such a strategy only works if you have big enough market share to establish de-facto standards
* "tight coupling" using closed/proprietary (and usually obsfucated) methods to make less established products (such as its server products like its "Microsoft Dynamics" line) interoperate with its dominant products (MS Office). This creates firm vendor lock-in for enterprise customers. A more loosely-coupled, standards-based approach would allow 3rd party competitors to interoperate with MS products (like OpenOffice with Sharepoint, or using PostgreSQL as a backend for Reporting Services). Vendor lock-in is not illegal itself, but when it's done to leverage a monopoly product it is arguably abuse of a monopoly position.
I'm not sure how well it'll work against Apache, since it is a more established, mature system than IIS and Apache is already free (and Free) whereas Netscape relied on revenue from its browser and server products. Ultimately, I think that it'll result in a dramatic lowering of MS' server product licensing fees with a much larger MS market share (closer to 50/50 with Apache), or they'll hit a wall and no amount of price deals will help. It all depends on how well Apache development continues against IIS and how well IIS holds up under heavier use.
> Little things like...oh...the Sherman Antitrust Act, anti-dumping provisions in the WTO, and likely future court rulings and legislation that might result from that sort of behaviour
OK, so let me just get this straight. You're actually serious here...
You think, that what's gonna stop MICROSOFT from doing something grossly unethical would be...
THE LAW?! LMAO!
Mod me down if you want for pointing it out, but the law has about as much effect on Microsoft as I do. They've PROVEN that they're above the law before. How many times do they have to do that before you accept it? Microsoft (like any ridiculously rich company) can do whatever it wants. It's the law that has to adapt.
> (especially from the EU and Asian countries that are slowly growing more hostile to Microsoft).
Well...Maybe non-US governments will treat them a little less gently. But keep in mind, politicians in those countries love money just as much as our US politicians do. And--more importantly--look at what happened the last time the mighty EU got angry at Microsoft: A few fines and Windows XP Home Edition "N." Oooh, what a mighty blow for justice! Yep, offering that edition righted all the wrongs. Justice served and lesson learned, right? Thanks, EU! Yeah. Right. Pardon me while I choke on the lameness of that punishment.
Welcome to capitalism. This is how we do things.
Although msft was convicted, msft didn't even get a slap on the wrist. Even with msft's faked videotape testomony.
Lately the DoJ has gotten really tough, because msft has not complied with any DoJ ruling. The DoJ had decided they would continue to watch msft. Oh boy, *that* will teach msft!