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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.
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
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."
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!"
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..
I did hear that China had officially standardized on Windows98... They bought a copy.
-- My Weblog.
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 fairly standard business practice. Microsoft even announces pre-release statistics for orders that are in a queue. The numbers will certainly go down, but a lot of individuals are only interested in peak values.
I think a lot of people are also 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)" for almost every Linux user and is what a lot of people have been working towards for a long time. 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.
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
I will take you up on that bet. I will bet my house against a can of coke from you. And I will win, because Red Hat 6.0 did NOT outsell any other OS on the market. If it had, don't you think the business/marketing-savvy people at soon-to-IPO Red Hat Inc would have trumpeted it.
You're right about the derivative, though. Divide the time into picoseconds, and I'll bet there's a picosecond when a copy of Red Hat was being paid for and no copy of Windows was being paid for.
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%
Message from Tokyo, Japan...
Now, don't be tricked with Cliff Miller's propaganda.
May be the press release aren't counting the OS's bundled with new computers.
Actually I don't see anyone using Turbo Linux around. Either Red Hat. For business use we all use Windows here. Techies who really want Linux use Red Hat, or may be Turbo Linux, but Vine Linux (http://vine.flatout.org/), which is a Red Hat based distribution more specialized for Japanese. It uses glibc locale and the error messages or output messages, man pages, are all Japanized. X Server supports TT fonts to display smooth edged Kanji.
--
Goura
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...
Exactly...
:) (Hi-End audio manufacturers left, OSs- right). And Samsung is really a Muzzide of audio industry!
McIntosh - Macintosh
AudioNote - AS/400
Marantz - Unix
Just kidding
KuroiNeko
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
And remember these figures are 'sales,' and do not include copies for friends (I looked at COPYING under their ftp directory and there was the GPL in its full glory.) I suppose OS usage statistics can be made from browser logs with the .jp domain.
If those are sales and copying is encouraged, I would dare say Linux is the dominant OS in Japan. Either that, or there are lots of pirated copies of Win98 and associated viruses.
Someone kicked it back down to 1... Its like a yo-yo! up-down-up-down...