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Rob Beard wrote: > > I always wonder about these things, what actually do they count? > > Do they count all the servers that are in use by home users/small > businesses etc, or do they just cover the fortune 500 companies? IDC count factory sales - units or revenue depending what they state on the report they are referring to. The 2006 press release is here; http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS20323506 I've no idea on the error bounds ;) The 2007 press release is here; http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS20840807 From 2007 press release; "Linux servers posted the fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating revenue growth, with year-over-year revenue growth of 19.0%, for a total of $1.8 billion in the quarter. Linux servers now represent 13.6% of all server revenue, up from 12.1% a year ago." In the Enquirer they convey the idea GNU/Linux servers some how losing by focusing on x86 server numbers only, when presumably someone is making good money shipping Linux on Itanium/EPIC, or other platforms that the IDC don't class as x86, otherwise the overall figure wouldn't be as good. Overall server market GNU/Linux growth slightly out paced growth in Microsoft Windows servers. That said I don't doubt that most x86 servers out of factory doors have Windows installed, did anyone doubt that? Basically the market is turning into a two horse race in terms of server operating systems. This is a "bad thing" (I think!), as diversity is good. Some of these vendors do ship with multiple OSes available - HP use to supply install media for many many OSes on some of their server ranges. Alternatively you could view it as Microsoft sales being limited because they fail to support as many modern architectures as competing products. Things like the zSeries no doubt make number crunching harder, as I believe they support extensive virtualisation, and IBM claim as many as 30% of their mainframe customers now run Linux on that hardware in some form (it might just be the system team playing NetHack ;-). Although I doubt this is a big thing, given the lack of questions here about it.
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