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TurboLinux Claims to be Number One OS in Japan
According to a company press release published today on Yahoo!Finance, TurboLinux is now the top-selling Japanese computer operating system. Not just the top-selling Linux distribution, but the top-selling OS, period, with sales almost as great as those of the Windows 98 commercial release and the Windows 98 commercial update combined. If only new commercial OS sales, not upgrades, are considered, things look even rosier for TurboLinux, which claims 24.09% of total market share as opposed to 13.25% for Win98 and 10.23% for Macintosh.
Japan is behind with regards to computers mostly because of their writing system. While latin-based alphabets like, e.g., the German or Spanish integrate quite easy into the anglocentric computing worlds character encoding, Japans 2*50+1940+x syllable and word symbols simply werent possible to implement (or paint readable) on early computers (those were only taught the 50 katakana symbols, but this f*cked up the ANSI-charset) and only in the past few years Japanese has become easily available on all the common computing platforms.
Maybe this doesnt give Windows that big of a headstart - but still, we're only looking at standalone sales, and windows is distributed alogside a computer usually.
I hate to see generalizations like "Japanese are more technically savvy as a whole", but this one is just off the mark.
Some people in Japan buy more gadgets, but they generally don't know how to work them any better than people in other parts of the world.
Take a look in a Japanese computer store or bookstore, Windows and _Mac_ still dominate by a long shot. Linux is pretty huge only in the academic, ISP, and ex-pat communities.
I see they are not totaly honest in this information, and that sucks.
But the truth is, if at all, Turbo Linux as ~%25 of the sales off the self, not preinstalled, not already running on computers, but ~1/4 of the people that walk into bestbuy or where ever pick up a box full of Linux Love, ~1/4 people snatch them selves a box of Open Source Goodines(TM) w/Vitiam B
How many people do you think that has a box of Penguin Power are going to recommmened it to their freinds?
It is the Truth that Linux is growing Rapidly in the Japaninesse market, not as much as yahoo would have your beilieve but the upward spiral for Linux is there man
I would how this compares to the US market, more or less?
I used to be really good at cracking software on my Mac. I'd sit down, download a program, spend an hour with the *free* debugger and resource editor that Apple puts out, and bang preso, crack done.
Then I moved to Windows. Things were a bit harder there. You don't get free programming tools from M$, so you have to pirate those first. Still doable.
Then I moved to Linux. And you don't *need* to pirate software, because 99.5% of the software is free. GPL neatly eliminates piracy. You can't pirate it if you can't pay for it. I'd have to spend a week with a debugger to get back up to speed, it's been so long since I've had to crack anything.
Linux is darn cool.
Why on earth are so many Japanese people _PAYING_ for Linux software... the only explanations are that they
a) haven't realised it's free
b) are not competant enough with their PC's and need to buy a support contract
-~ Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier. ~-
Just out of curiosity, how do different OSes compare in foreign language support? I've heard that the MacOS is pretty solid, and Windows does okay. AFAIK, GNOME is the first really big push into foreign-language support on **IX...true or not?
Why can't Red Hat fill the void? I wouldn't be upset if a bunch of Linux coders got disgustingly wealthy. Well, at least not as upset as the legions of marketers that seem to staff M$...
And has said more knowledgeable things than anyone else. How does *that* show you up?
They don't suck?
Yes, yer honor, a web browser is an *integral* part of an operating system...
:-)
So now Win 95 with MSIE is a different OS than Win 95?
Ya, but M$ does lots of spin doctoring too. I don't consider you worse...but much better?
Okay, it was for a good cause, from our point of view. I still think that that's twisting the facts too much to feel comfortable about.
Wouldn't it have been better to wait until TurboLinux really *did* make #1 *period*, and then announce it?
Why should TurboLinux be the first?
Why shouldn't it be? If they expect us to treat them better than M$, I think we can expect better from them, in marketing as well as production.
The customer can demand whatever he wants. I want TurboLinux to be a bit less deceptive in their numbers. They, as the company, have the right to ignore me. If not enough people care, they win. If enough people do, they lose.
For example, I just moved TurboLinux a notch down on my list of distributions I'd be interested in. If no one else does so, then TurboLinux was right in putting spin on.
{Disclaimer: I already use RH and like it a lot and don't plan to switch soon, so I don't mean to mislead you into thinking you lost a sale *this month*.}
And a loss for those of us that *do* prefer RH?
It used to be fine.. I notice the Japanese typically at these occasions:
One must state albeit, that there is a language barrier. Most of us Non-Japanese don't speak Japanese and the other way round English seems to be hard for the Nihonjin too. If they cross it, interesting things get revealed often, like a cute new mp3 encode (gogo), last week.
However this company, under its old name Pacific HiTech used to be the Japanese FreeBSD distributor, might be that this has changed.
Considering that TurboLinux has such a large piece of the OS pie in Japan, it seems pretty obvious that Japan is being left in the dust. This basically means that perhaps the largest share of PC users in Japan are techies -- not normal end users. Lets face it -- most user don't need to use (nor would they be willing to learn to use) an operating environment as flexible and powerful as Linux.
I hate to say it, but Microsoft market share in Japan will probably be the best indicator of overall tech-savy in Japan because it means that more and more users are integrating PC use into their normal lives. When a country (at this point in the game, anyway) has such a large percentage of Linux users, it probably means that the market is so small that techies and hackers dominate the market for PCs while everyone else is satisfied to just own a PlayStation.
For the time being, Linux is still best suited to people who have the ability and prefer the flexibility of being able to fine tune an OS to their own needs. Most non-hobbiest (excluding work-related users) would still prefer a simple system that lets them email, chat, surf, etc... since they have little use for all of the free development tools and customization which makes Linux a better choice for techies (which is why I dumped MS long ago...).
In short, Japan is still serverly lagging in the 'consumer' (aka 'ignorant end user' (j/k)) market. Maybe they'll make it up by developing better add-ons to Linux to make it more '(End) User Friendly' but I'd bet that "Microsoft Consumer Operating Systems" will almost certainly remain a better fit for most people.
-NooM
Actually, he was talking about adding different distributions of the same OS. You're talking about adding 3 different OSes together. His statement is a lot closer to what the other poster was talking about when he added in the academic version and the VPC than yours is.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
How'd you do that? The moderation system always removes the dropbox from comments I'd already scored.
Technically speaking, different distributions are different (but very similar) OSs. The OS is more than just the kernel.
I once had a math teacher who hated statistics. :)
Why?
Because most of the time they don't tell you anything.
He said that people doing this kind of statistical stuff decide on what the results should be before doing the actual counting.
Sure, we love these numbers, but they ARE FALSE.
Someone wanted Linux to look the best wrt market share (can anyone name a slashdot reader who wouldn't=), but let's face the music.
_As much as I want Linux to exceed M$ Win*_ I want it to do so fair and square, we've just gotta be patient
as the Register points out, the figures were for a week's time. One week is hardly a statistically significant figure for OS sales, even if TurboLinux did outsell Windows98 (which, as you point out, it really didn't). Let's see some figures for a year, or even one quarter.
except that if you post to a discussion thread on which you moderated posts, the moderation you did to any posts on that discussion is removed... so this post had 2 points or so removed from it and it had already been moderated downwards by other moderators, so it is now at a score of -2. nifty, you broke slashdot. since the selecty box thingums only allow you to chose a threshold of -1, you have to go into the url and change ...&threshold=-1... to ...&threshold=-10... (well, it only needs be -2, but best be safe, right?) in order to even see the post...
quite entertaining, methinks...
I don't mean to flame but I think you mean 31.83% is bigger than 24.09% (right? this just gets annoying on /. sometimes)
Boy, if TL can't be held to a standard higher than M$, I'm not impressed.
Wasn't Linux supposed to *improve* things, not just replace Windows with itself? Cut down on bad software, make companies more open?
Maybe I'm just naive, and RH/TL/Caldera are all a bunch of moneygrubbers no better than M$. It *was* a pleasant fantasy.
Maybe he means unquestioned for 15 minutes or something.
Ya. The poorer countries are the ones with piracy. I'd say Japan is roughly equal to the US in piracy, without any hard numbers.
If I was M$ or any other commercial software vendor, I'd get worried...once a massive piracy foundation is in place, it's *really* hard to get rid of it ("We got the last one for free...why should we pay for this one?"). Not bad now, but as those countries become important software markets (or ship more and more counterfeit wares out), it's gonna become an issue.
Japan missed the boat (so the US media says) on the PC, multimedia, and to a point, the Internet. From what I've heard, they've been struggling to catch up to US companies. Looks like they're determined not to be left behind again. Nice to see them take the lead like this.
Question is, how long until the US catches up? I hope our companies and consumers realize what the Japanese have already figured out.
I wonder how well FreeBSD is doing over there...
I think they actually set up a state college, enrolled one person in it, and got an academic discount on it...
Of course, I've never paid for anything over $100 myself, so I shouldn't be talking...
The total Japanese OS figures quoted in the press release tally approximately 75%. While I don't doubt the presence of more than 25 sub-1% OS's, I do doubt that their total market share is 25%.
I wonder whether there's 3llIte \/\/@ReZ-speak in Japan? Must be interesting, if you aren't using English letters (proper term Roman glyphs?) to see what it's like...
I'm gonna have fun with this one. And to think all my friends thought I was on crack when I told them that Linux was going to take out MS. "No way man, MS is just too big." HA!
Yes, it probably does in sheer numbers (x copies of software pirated).
:-)
In *ratio* of pirated copies to purchased ones, China beats the snot out of the US.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, *you* DO sound like a anti-racist extremist fuckhead.
Congrats,
Chinese back-lash anti-racist pop-culture sheep loser.
(This is about how productive your last comment was to the person you made it to...pretty pointless, no?)
This is "retail sales". Nobody buys Windows 98 retail. People get it with their PCs.
"Fubar Linux has 100% of all sales to red-haired people wearing glasses on tuesday mornings between 9:35 and 9:36 am in Paris, Texas."
anime + Linux = ...well, I don't know what it is, but it must be *darn* cool!
If you add up all the lines in the press release table that say "MS Windows 98 something-or-other" you get 29.9%. Not to understate how close 24% is to that, but saying it's number 1 is moderately dishonest.
LJS
Who marked this one up? I laughed out loud. Not often that you see sarcastic moderating.
I really think we should encourage this. Suppose it sort-of defeats the purpose of moderation.
If you add the total market share Windows enjoys you get:
MS Windows 98 Upgrade 13.25%
MS Windows 98 9.15%
MS Windows 98 Academic 3.87%
MS Windows 98 Academic Upgrade 3.63%
Virtual PC 2.1 (Win) 1.93%
Thats a total of 31.83%
That's 7.74% more than TurboLinux's claimed 24.09% market share...
Even if you don't count VPC's 1.93%, Windows 98 takes the cake... NOT TurboLinux.
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
We need native support for Esperanto or something.
I need to learn that one of these days...
MacIntosh? You gotta be kidding me. It's Macintosh or MacOS, not MacIntosh.
These statistics were based on retail sales of software, not hardware. Although virtually every new PC comes with Windows 98, there are a significant number of individuals who actually purchase Windows 98 to upgrade their Windows 3.x or Windows 95 platforms, as the 'Windows 98 Upgrade' number indicates.
The numbers don't pretend to indicate market share, and TurboLinux was not responsible for collecting the numbers. These values came straight out of Business Computer News. If BCN chose not to include OS/HW bundling in their sales statistics, it was their decision.
I think you'll also find that there were no lies within the press announcement. The report explicitly stated that TurboLinux outsold every other individual OS. Because each of the variants of Windows 98 has been SKU'd differently and has a different price point, Business Computer News likely chose to separate out the values themselves. Again, that was their policy and not ours.
I think the only thing we can be said to be guilty of is a little spinning. This is a completely standard business practice, and I think it was justified. We're very proud of Linux, and our particular distribution, and we want the world to realize that Linux is a viable platform. If the article helped convince even one business manager that Linux is a grown-up operating system, and not just a fringe-player, then I think the press release did the community a service.
Whether you use TurboLinux or not, I think everyone who loves Linux should feel proud to see a distribution achieve this level of market penetration.
Best Regards,
Aaron McKee
Sr. Technical Marketing Engineer
TurboLinux, Inc.
Aaron McKee
Clustering Products Manager
TurboLinux, Inc.
I wonder if they are counting sales of 'Linux Japan' magazine. Every month, it comes out with a different distro on 2 CDs in the back of the magazine, for 1500yen. (~$12) I also see dozens of boxed versions on the shelves here.
Also, I wouldn't assume that piracy rates here in Japan are the same as in the US. I hate to make statements about the culture as a group, but I can tell you that many Japanese people just will not do something if they know it is illegal. I haven't found anyone here who would rationalize such a thing as a 'victimless crime.'
I don't know if many Japanese companies would embrace the ideals of open source and the copyleft concept, either.
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Your comparing them to American persons. These guys are taking calc in the 4rth grade. Our idea of technical people is most likely a bit different over there, I would tend to think..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
BSD have as many users in Japan has Linux have.
I did hear that China had officially standardized on Windows98... They bought a copy.
-- My Weblog.
Did anyone else notice that if you add up the percentages, you don't get 100%?
24.09% + 13.25% + 10.23% + 9.15% + 6.84% + 3.87% + 3.63% + 2.64% + 2.03% + 1.93% = 77.66%
I can accept a little statistical rounding, but given the precision of their numbers, and the fact that they're off by almost 25% makes me a little more suspicious.
Although we were expecting the numbers to go down, as well, we were pleasantly surprised to see that TurboLinux held on for another week. For the second week of it's release, 23% of all retail OS sales were TurboLinux.
It's expected that sales are usually larger when a product is first released, and that's when most business analysts correlate and publish their statistics. It's not a lie, it's just standard business practice. Microsoft even announces pre-release statistics for orders that are in a queue.
I think a lot of people are missing the real point of this. Linux is appearing as a viable OS platform to a very large and important segment of the world's computing population. Whether you use TurboLinux or not, this is certainly a "Good Thing(tm)" and is what a lot of people have been working towards for a very long time. One can quibble over how the numbers were calculated, but in the end TurboLinux still accounted for 24% of the sales for operating systems. To a lot of people who don't currently use Linux, this is one indication that Linux is 'growing up' and turning into a mainstream operating sytem.
Best Regards,
Aaron McKee
Sr. Technical Marketing Engineer
TurboLinux, Inc.
Aaron McKee
Clustering Products Manager
TurboLinux, Inc.
Japanese kids are just as apt to pirate software as are Americans.
Why would a country *want* an "OS of their own"? Linux breaks down national barriers and whatnot. That's a *good* thing.
Jeez, all we need is for the OS wars to have nationality to be added to the mix for some really nasty flame wars.
Sounds pretty solid, except for your assumption that no one pirates the MacOS. Admittedly, *far* fewer people do than pirate Win 95/98 (even ratio-wise), but it still does get pirated...
BeOS doesn't show up? Aw....
We don't need MS-drones spreading FUD around here. Linux-drones are doing so effectively on their own.
You don't like MS FUD? Fine. Be honest with yourself...if MS were in TurboLinux's shoes, you'd be screaming your head off about FUD.
I don't love M$, but I sure won't blind myself to TurboLinux's sins just because they happen to be trying to make their $$ off Linux rather than Windows.
More FreeBSD than MacOS?
Heh. *That* is FUD.
Good point.
The thought of Michael Jackson promoting Linux.....
Eeew. I think I'd rather have Bill Gates singing its wonders.
So you market well. And you even respond on Slashdot. Okay, you're doing a great job.
I just find marketing in general sort of repugnant (nothing personal, I assure you)...yes, you need it to survive, but it seems that 90% of the things I dislike about the computer world come from FUD from marketers.
Aside from MS bloated software, of course...
Maybe MacOS 7.0 *had* the remaining 25%...
In a depression. With an economy that's growing far slower than most of its competitors.
Japan has anime. On the other hand, they also produced the Tamigotchi, which neutralizes that in my book.
On the other hand, we have Jesse Ventura as a governor...and I can't think of anything to cancel *that* out...
there are some developers contributing a NetBSD port to Sony NEWS, read more at:
s rc/japanese/README.html
http://www.jp.netbsd.org/Ports/newsmips
and for japanese software after installing NetBSD, look for packages at:
ftp://ftp.jp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkg
the project www page is at:
http://www.netbsd.org
well thank you.
no, it wasn't done because of 'first post', just because i was taken back about this news...
dan "author of the insightful 'wow' message" moore
pergamon@68k.org
... whereas Windows 98 has been out for many months. It's quite possible that this will be the peak of TurboLinux's sales; especially if they include all of the copies middlemen and retailers have initially purchased, in advance of retail sales, to "stock the channel" and fill shelf space.
I'm afraid that what you don't understand is that geeks cannot distinguish between "standard business practice" and lying.
I'm sorry, but this is narrow-minded, ethnocentric rubbish.
Have you considered that maybe the vast bulk of the japanese cosumers don't want a huge, heavy, bloated PC?
A lot of very clever, very tightly packed electronics sells in Japan- a lot of ingenuity is devoted to making things smaller, cuter, neater etc.
Maybe not everyone wants or needs the computer equivalent of a huge gas-guzzling Chevy. People who have powerful PDAs, GPSsen, mobiles phones etc. can often survive quite well, both at home and away from it.
It's a radically different society, so to mark it down because it doesn't conform to the American ideal is a bit facile and wrongheaded, IMHO.
Mmm, another ethnocentric racist American college weenie. On a KKK scholarship are we?
Last time I was unlucky enough to be able to check, the vast majority of organised warez puppies were still American, BTW.
I'm sorry, but I'm really dissapointed at the low quality of the comments on this thread- such a reactionary WASP kneejerk crowd was exactly what I hoped to avoid, by reading slashdot rather than ZDNET.
Where are NT and Win95?
Nice theory from someone who doesn't actually have a clue about the present situation in Japan. The last thing one would imagine is that computers are limited to "techies" here. On the other hand, *home* use seems to be very limited.
As for Turbo Linux numbers, it probably doesn't include Windows 98 OEM, and includes Turbo Linux distributed with magazines. Only way to explain these numbers.
[yes, I live in Japan]
(8-DCS)
Bill Clinton as president.
> In addition, the NetBSD/PowerPC lead developer is japanese.
And the NetBSD/ssh3 portmaster who is also the guy who's responsible for the ipv6/ipsec stuff.
I've read some time ago that *BSD does better than linux in Japan (and south-east asia), that's why I doubt those numbers a little bit.
At first I was concerned that a bunch of mindless MS-Drones© had become the norm on slashdot. I was very saddened to see one of my favorite Linux sites go this way. But then I noticed that a significant number of the posts decrying this great accomplishment of TurboLinux® were actually the same 4 people posting the same thing over and over again.
*PHEW!* I was worried there for a second.
little hard for them to claim this, while there are almost twice as many freebsd installs in japan as linux and macos. funny how the facts get twisted whenever the media gets ahold of them.
I want to add my "me too" to this. For me the low windows numbers show that japan is *ahead* of the rest of the world. (No, I don't live in japan.)
LWD: Linux World Domination
;-)
Now that the Japanese are getting smart to Linux, hopefully the U.S. will follow in these wise footsteps.
(Also, hopefully with the Debian distribution
"..a civilized nation will have full gun registration. Our streets safer, our police more efficient, the world will foll
How many pathetic wheezy rock star wannabes/has-beens have delivered this line? Japan is the home of the fscking Tamagotchi for chrissake. The average consumer there sure does know technology. I know, they could scrap the penguin and use Pokemon as their new mascot. Hey, maybe TurboLinux will get The Bangles to endorse their software... or even Michael Jackson!
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
first of all, i'm chinese, not japanese.
as for entering commands in the shell, none of the commands get 'translated' to chinese/japanese. it's still ls, bash, dir, etc. it's sorta meaningless to translate something that easy to type to something else. It breaks the normal build processes too.
as for entering chinese characters, it's actually easier to do it in Japanese than Chinese because the japanese have a standard set of alphabets (hiragana and katakana) and standardized 'spelling'. to enter a japanese character, say, hito (just means men in japanese, or people). one would type HI and then TO. all the katas are mapped to certains keys on the qwerty keyboard. afterwards, the dictionary program finds all instances of words that are pronounced HI-TO (different words may have the same pronounciation in chinese and japanese). you then choose from a list.
being chinese, i feel obligated to also explain how to enter chinese and how bitchy it is for any native speakers.
since we chinese don't have any real form of standardized spelling(there's Pinyin, it's popular in the Mainland, but i'm from hong kong.), it makes entering chinese really difficult. there're four main types of input methods. you either learn pinyin (or other ways of spelling chinese, or use some stroke-based input method (there are standardized stroke orders. you always have to write the characters in a particular stroke-order), pen recognition and newer voice recognition tech.
i don't think these input methods are any good at all because it doesn't make using chinese in a computer as easier as using english. and i think this is also a reason why linux is not doing as well in China/Hong Kong/Taiwan as japan because chinese input programs are still not as well developed as the Japanese one.
mustapha.
--bdj
I hate to break it to you guys, but FreeBSD installations outnumber both Linux and MacOS. Most installs are done over the internet, becaust PHT turned tail and started hawking only TurboLinux in JP.
Now it's all the way down to -2
I gues people are getting pissed. I had to modify my URL manualy in order to see it, my threshold is now -9....
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Relax, its playing MS at their own game...
the list was not a complete list-- it was abridged for the press release. The complete list, which included BTRON, the BSDs, etc., printed out takes one line printer page-- not the stuff you include in a press release, it seems.
As far as piracy in China goes, the govt condones
it, remember kiddies, this is a communist country,
giving the capitalists money is BAD! And I have heard their govt will actually punish you for buying instead of pirating.
Well, Microsoft has seen this move to non-PC platforms quite a while ago. A lot of their press releases emphasize their intention of working with companies similar to 3com. With 27 billion dollars sitting in cash, Microsoft is going to be able to make a lot of friends in this area. That is just the sort of catalyst a lot of these smaller (well, when compared to Microsoft) are going to need to get their products out. And, low and behold, they will be coming out with MS OS's.
1. The
2. The Japanese, as consumers are very different than the American consumer. If anything, I would say they are more teckie than the average American, but in a different way. They value form as well as function. Most ultralight nitebooks are designed by and/or created for the Japanese market. Just because they had pokemon and that kind of stuff means nothing. The Japanese love technology. That's one reason why all game consoles and lot of games come out in Japan first. They have a greater market presenece in Japan(sony, sega, and nintendo).
3. One poster was correct when he said that retail sales do mean a lot. If more people are upgrading to TurboLinux than upgrading to Windows98 on their computers, then they are doing something correctly. That means good things for the future.
remy
http://www.mklinux.org
> I wonder how well FreeBSD is doing over there...
Better than the US as a "percentage-of-the market"
thing. TurboLinux *DOES* own the Lunix market though. Redhat's japanese port (done by a company
called Laser5) really sucks and I probably expect
PHT to get bought up by a RedHat flush with IPO cash...
Are you suggesting that there is a difference?
I actually mean to flame... WTF are you talking about?
OK, I admit, I do a lot of posting to slashdot
(if you look at my id, "Anonymous Coward", you will see that I do *most* of the posting here;
in fact, cmdr taco has been nice enough to create a special comment page just for me). And its not
that I'm an MS fool, its just that whenever I can
twist the facts, I take the chance to do so.
I can't speak for the other three posters.
how does a command line interface work with japanese or chinese characters? do they just use "english" commands (I mean, bash, dir, ls arn't *realy* english).
I get how they can display character text, I've got my computer rigged up to show chinese and japanes web pages, but *how* do they get them into the computer? it can't be all hand writing, can it? well, anyway. this is somthing I've always wanted to know. thanks
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
it is probably 25% of new sales, not 25% of installed base... yet.
Of course... that is, until all those bought copies get copied and passed around and installed, and then, the whole of Japan (& the Pacific Rim) will be using Linux!
Woo Hoo!
Insert mind here.
"When a country (at this point in the game, anyway) has such a large percentage of Linux users, it probably means that the market is so small that techies and hackers dominate the market for PCs while everyone else is satisfied to just own a PlayStation."
That is exactly why the next year and a half or so will see serious threats to Microsoft coming out of Japan. You're right, the Japanese "ignorant end user" market is content to just own a PlayStation--and a cellular phone (85% of the population) and a palmtop, and a GPS navigator...
The bloated Microsoft PC is great for American consumers, who can put it in the rec room next to the bumper pool. But it doesn't fit too well in the average Japanese consumer's backpack. Nor does it drive powerful graphic engines for video games (far more popular than movies here).
The Playstations, cell phones, palmtops, and countless other gadgets are getting more powerfully very quickly, and their combined power and flexibility will soon outstrip that of PCs. Japan will be the first place to realize the dream of "ubiquitous computing" embedded in billions of consumer devices, communicating through the internet. The GUI for the OSes running on these devices won't have windows and icons--more likely kittens and dinosaurs and busty schoolgirls. Unlike American consumers, the Japanese don't need the bland (inter)face of Microsoft to reassure them that they bought the right thing.
So given that the Japanese techies and hackers at the companies who make these devices are so devoted to Linux, who's to say the OSes they run won't be Linux-based?
Left in the dust? I doubt it.
You probably don't want to see the rest of th list... the table just highlights the major marketshares. People really don't care about some guy buying an old copy of Mac System 7.0 at a garage sale making up .00001% of the OS sales for that week. (IE It has nothing to do with the point they're trying to make)
I think this statement quite easily qualifies as flamebait.. This story is insane for other reasons (someone already mention peak interest as opposed to average interest). But your reasons are quite inflammatory and stereotyping of the Japanese culture. In fact, I have quite a bit of modern Japanese music and I like it. As for the Tomagotchi, you have to admit that it was quite a fad here as well.. In fact, you could say america was the home of any number of insane fads. That's the way fads go, once past they usually seem quite insane.. Please attack stories and more technical and relevant grounds in the future if you feel the need to bring them down.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Chad Okere, self apointed Unquestioned Lord of the internet
I question your lordship of the internet, therefor you may no longer refer to yourself as the Unquestioned Lord of the internet
*Phbbt*
The AC was referring to the usage of the word than instead of then when making comparisons... basically just wasting bandwidth
they dont mention that 98% of PCs come with windows98 on them, and they arent counting those as sales. weak weak weak.
I hate liars, even if they arent the dark forces of evil
-I go to Rice, so figure out my email address
This one's misleading since it breaks Win98 sales into 4 parts. Added together you get:
29.9 All Win98
10.23 Mac
28.76 All linux
This is really amazing for the linux crowd, and espescially turbo linux, but it isn't the victory y'all been waiting for. Just a further narrowing of the gap. It should however, be taken as a victory for all of you that hate redhat for some odd reason or other.
--Shoeboy.
How the h*ll does a comment like that get moderated up? To a 3 no less? All it said was "wow". Oh yeah, thats real informative. For all we know the AC was saying wow because they were the first post.
Japan's pirates make our pirates look like deck swabbies. Think Blackbeard vs Peter Pan here. BOOM BOOM peter dead.
Having been there, and around asia, there are some places that have more pirates, warez, and cd pressers per square meter than we have in the entire country.
-SmartAss (you called for it, ignorance is not bliss)
If you actually read the article you will see that this is very much not true...
/Simon
If you add up all Windows 98 percentages you will quickly see that (13.25 + 9.15 + 3.87 + 3.63 + 1.93) 31.83% is bigger then 24.09%
Your guess is correct!
Those of us who use "Highest Scores First" need to know these things.
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
The gaming market is very big in Japan. Sony announced a few months ago that it was releasing and embracing Linux as a development platform for the Playstation 2 (PSX2).
I think they were releasing the development software exclusively on Linux...
Japan is a developed country; its people have enough money to pay for their own computer and software. The open source charactoristic doesn't give much advantage over those heavily commercialized OS's. Moreover, those OS's can easily fight back by innovating or lowering of their prices.
What Linux distributions should focus on are those developing countries. In many of those countries, the piracy rate is so high that it literally effects the nation's economy. Linux can be cheaply distributed in those countries and easily replace their pirating market. The success of this will benefit both the developing country and Linuxdom.
Leon
This looks like a report that was watched from the "user friendly strip". Its like anti fud.. or I guess you gotta fight fud with fud.
"On a clear night you can hear the FUD growing in the fields!"
It's posible your logic is flawed, I mean we really don't know all the facts from this press reliase. It could be a similar situation to the US in the 1980s (I belive) when most of the people who owned computers used DOS and were happy with it, and knew what they were doing. but most of the people in general didn't own computers at all.
but it could also be that more people in general, (or at least %24) *are* techies. I mean japanese culture, as far as I know stresses learning and engenering. Maybe there are just more geeks in japan. we can't really know from this PR, we woudl need a lot more numbers to find out.
Actualy if you look at the numbers in this peice, I belive it only shows *sales* not *total* share, I don't see how somthing just reliased could grab almost a quarter of the market like that... and most win* OS's come with boxes, are those taken into acount?
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
nither of those OSs was on the list, and I'd be willing to bet that NT could be the "dark matter" in that list there....
but that wouldn't make it a really intresting PR bit....
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
In Japan, Linux is the leading non-MS OS. After Linux, BeOS is coming on strong. Check out BeOS Japan. A couple years ago there was some interest in BSD but BSD is now way way back of BeOS. Interest in BSD has slipped dramatically; BeOS may be the next "big thing" in Japan.
I have a question, why does the table only add up to 78.66%? what's the other 21.34%? Product Marketshare
------- -----------
TurboLinux J 4.0 24.09%
MS Windows 98 Upgrade 13.25%
MAC OS 8.5 J 10.23%
MS Windows 98 9.15%
Virtual PC 2.1 (PCDOS) 6.84%
MS Windows 98 Academic 3.87%
MS Windows 98 Academic Upgrade 3.63%
RedHat J 5.2 2.64%
Vine Linux 1.0 J 2.03%
Virtual PC 2.1 (Win) 1.93%
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
This cool stat isn't what you think. This is hype! The sales stats cited are only for the first week of July. Which is VERY important. That means that in the first week after the software became available in Japan it dominated. MacOS, Windows et al have all been selling for months there. What you are seeing is the intial interest spike as people rush to the stores to get it. (Remember people lining up when Windows 95 came out? ) Check back in 4 or 5 weeks and see how it compares then!
Japan is not anymore a "haven" for software piracy then the US is (althoug, in my exsperance that's not saying much....). however China, Koria Maylasia, are very deep into piracy. In any of the "poorer" asian contrys, this is a problem. Japan is not a poor contry by any means
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You probably look at the map and determined that Japan is a small country with not much population.
WRONG. that island is one of the most jam-packed places in the world, with one of the highest GDP in the world.
~25% of the market share, that is more than ALL distrubation have in the United States, right?
acutaly, I dobut that, although I don't really know. I mean how many people go out and buy an MS-OS? most of the people I know who build new systems just copy it, and it comes free with a new computer (as far as *retail* sales of OSs are consurned, these sales don't count)
and with sites like cheapbytes.com, I'm willing to bet there are a lot of linux sales in the us
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
ENGLISH!
Does it seem _really_ weird to anyone else that they listed VirtualPC as an operating system, when it's actually an emulator? I know, it comes with Windows, and that's what they were counting, but it still seems really weird. They definitely need to count OEM sales.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I'll grant, Linux is a Good Thing. I'll grant, it's gaining in popularity. But there is simply no way this is possible, not yet at any rate.
Consider, first of all, that not counting upgrades TurboLinux, Win98, and MacOS don't even take up 50% of the market in Japan by TurboLinux's own admission. This said, therefore, what are the other OS'es people are buying in Japan, considering that there must be at least six more for it to be mathematically possible for the numbers they gave to be correct (that is, with TurboLinux at the top, Win98 second, and MacOS third with the given numbers)?
Look, I'm rooting for Linux as much as the next guy. But someone at TurboLinux needs to check their numbers, because something isn't adding up
But still, I'd love to see the look on Billy's face when he reads that press release...
First off, this is Japan the land of the software pirates. I read the other day (think on zdnet) that in Asia China pirates 99.8% of the installs. Japans install rates of pirate software was above 60%. So right there it smashes a huge hole in the idea of Linux as the leader in the market. The second fact is that you really need to add the total sales numbers for Win98 together to get a good estimate.
This number does NOT include the installed OS that comes on a NEW PC. THIS IS THE DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL THAT IS IMPORTANT. Who cares about retail sales in a nation of pirates.
so what do you think is going to happen when the Japanese get up to speed on Linux?
Lot's of cool Linux compatible gadgets! Not to mention software and japanime and sushi etc...
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Doesn't Japan use any other unicies commerical or other wise, (solaris, sunOS, AIX, IRIX, freeBSD, openBSD, netBSD, etc. etc.)or NT, any OS run on their mainframes (if they got em) or palmtops?
:(
Why doesn't Japan start active research/development on OS techs? They could actively strengthen linux in any way they see fit, does japan have an OS that they can all their own?
I don't think this article is completely true, there is some grey areas, but neither less Turbo Linux has taken a LARGE chunk of the OS market in japan, and my hat is off to them in all due respect for showing a strong presents in japan.
~25% of the market share, that is more than ALL distrubation have in the United States, right?
Also I heard the Korea Goverment was actively developmenting/funding Linux Research and Develpment, I have looked for articles on this to dis/proven this rumor, but atlast I can't read Korean
I'm willing to bet that the breakdown in japan goes something like this:
... 2%
Retail Outlets:
Win98 30%
MacOS 10%
Linux 28%
InternetDownloads:
Linux 80%
*BSD 18%
PreInstalled versions
Win9x 80%
WinNT 7%
MacOS 11%
Linux/*Nix/BEOS/CPM/etc
Pirated Software
Win9x 90%
WinNT 5%
Proprietary *Nix 2%
NetWare 3%
So now we have 4 banks of equally valid statistics (well not really, since the online, fact. install and piracy stats are best guesses) The neato thing is that we can look at the pirated software category and say that MS is kicking butt. Linux has 0% market share. That means it's not desirable (actually it means it's free) We can look at the online downloads and see that MS market share is effectively zero since only a few warez d00dz are downloading it. We can look at factory installs and assume that MS has a healthy lead and that competition is limited. None of these stats is false, but none of them gives a true representation of software usage patterns in Japan. I personally have no idea what % of OS's in Japan are sold via retail channels. This stat suggests that given an array of competing products lined up on a shelf the Japanese tend to buy Linux at the same rate as Win98. What it does not suggest is that MS market share in Japan is endangered. It might be, but we can't tell this by looking at a highly specific branch of the OS trade.
--Shoeboy
starting from 0, up to 3, back down to 1
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
The US leads the world in this category. Just cause we can't burn pirate cd's with pretty graphics doesn't mean much.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, you DO sound like a racist fuckhead.
Congrats,
American Butter-head NipNip Warez Doodz
Now that will draw a ton of Micro$oft comparisons.
That would be the first Linux "merger", right?
Look, it's as if that zany guy from Mad Magazine is posting on slashdot! Goons, what a show!
SIGH... More bogus stories on SlashDot. The actual figures show TurboLinux barely outselling the full version of Win98, despite the fact that Win98 is mostly sold preinstalled and has been out for quite a while.
Turbo's sales will go down, the same as Win98's did--but it won't have Win98's sustained pre-installed sales.
I would have agreed with that comment more a year or two ago. At this point Linux *is* usable by non-techies, esp. if the install process sets up KDE or GNOME with a rich set of defaults and GUI tools.
So, what does a marketing engineer do then?
Deleted
I don't have any numbers to support it, but the *BSD/Japan teams are always pretty high on the RC5 effort, which suggests to me that the Japanese have been in on the free market *nix movement for a while. In addition, the NetBSD/PowerPC lead developer is japanese.
now back up to 2...
this is getting fun
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
down to 1 again
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
and now it hits 0
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
Well I'm proud to say that I marked this post up as insightfull, . . . twice . . . Yes that is right, I wasted two moderation points on this little bugger. (It's safe for me to say this stuff as I'm no longer a moderator, I ran out of points).
I've had my moment in the spot light, thank you.