Business is not Evil

[Eamonn Sullivan]

On 18/11/05, Chris Woods <chris at bitspace.org> wrote:
> Derek Broughton wrote:
> > Never.  They don't count non-commercial software and call it "market share".
> >
>
> Have you read the report that was linked in the message you're replying
> to here? I would say that unless you're privy to some kind of
> information that the rest of us are not (for example, having coughed up
> the US$500 for access to the report), you can't make that claim with any
> real accuracy.
>
> The title of the report uses the term "Market Share", which would lead
> me to believe that they *are* counting installed base, not just sales.
> However, they might further qualify the definition of "Market Share" in
> the report itself, but I'm not going to pay to read a silly report.

Just FYI, but the reports I see from Gartner and IDC (I'm a
journalist) do measure Linux "market share," by counting total spend
on things like hardware and services. For example, if you buy a blade
from IBM for your Linux server, a helpdesk contract from Red Hat or
Ubuntu and then give some money to someone else to help you set it up
securely, all that money goes in the Linux "server market share"
column. Linux, on that measure, has had I think its fifth billion-plus
dollar quarter on that measure.

If you did that for a Windows server (which would, of course, include
the licensing cost) that goes in the Windows column.

So, there. Everyone's right, everyone can declare victory and we cut
this ridiculous thread off.

-Eamonn