Linux and Mac Neck-n-Neck in Desktop Market Share

[aleska]

I wrote a brief article on how linux and mac are neck-n-neck when it comes to desktop market share. I think it is pretty neat to see the strides Linux has taken despite the lack of advertising and marketing we see with either Mac or Windows. Here is the story (http://http://www.skarulis.com/?p=20) in case anyone is interested in reading.
If people think it would be appropriate to post the article in full here on the forum, I will...but, I'll assume no unless I get lots of replies to the contrary.
Regards,
aleska

[%hMa@?b<C]

it just redirects me here
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/

[ComplexNumber]

it just redirects me here
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/
thats because the url is complete crap (for a start, there are 2 x "http"'s in the url).

[professor_chaos]

http://www.skarulis.com/?p=20

[bjweeks]

This is total ********. :---)

[Smitty4802]

I wrote a brief article on how linux and mac are neck-n-neck when it comes to desktop market share.

Brief is an understatement :D

[aleska]

Sorry about the bad link. It was supposed to be http://www.skarulis.com/?p=20
As for bjweeks comments, hard to respond to a statement that something is ******** and then a smilie indicating "liar". Yes, bad links are ********, so sorry to offend your senses. Liar? No idea what that is supposed to mean. I lied about the link?

Smitty4802, maybe I should have said blurb? I don't know.

I thought it was interesting that Linux and Mac have equal desktop share. I don't think most people, let alone Linux users necessarily know that. In fact I think that is downright amazing considering the amount of money Apple pours into marketing and advertising. If you diagree with the approach for measurement, great, explain your thoughts.

Anyway, maybe I posted this too late in the day and caught folks while they were simply cranky.

Again, apologies for the bad link.
Regards,
Aleska

[bjweeks]

w3schools is not reputable source, and common sense says that OSX has a bigger market share.


I thought it was interesting that Linux and Mac have equal desktop share. I don't think most people, let alone Linux users necessarily know that. In fact I think that is downright amazing considering the amount of money Apple pours into marketing and advertising. If you diagree with the approach for measurement, great, explain your thoughts.

People who use Linux: Nerds and their friends and family.
People who use OSX: Schools, graphics artists and tons of other people.

[ComplexNumber]

and common sense says that OSX has a bigger market share. i don't think it has. their market share was (apparently) virtually equal in 2003, yet linux is increasing market share at a significantly faster rate than mac OS X (for obvious reasons).


Since then, it's become possible to find actual significant examples of companies and government bodies that have chosen to switch desktops from Windows to Linux, and the operating system is making a small but perceptible impact on desktop OS market share. IDC says Linux's desktop market share has nearly doubled in the past three years, from 1.5 percent at the end of 2000 to 2.8 percent now. Linux is poised to surpass Apple's 2.9 percent of the market, as projected a year ago.
http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020472,39118695,00.htm




People who use Linux: Nerds and their friends and family. knowing the range of people who i know use linux from my experience, that statement is so out of touch. maybe about 5-10 years ago. certainly not now.

[aleska]

Interesting position. I just read your rants over on this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=236017 (similar subject) so I don't expect to convince you of anything. But, for anyone else reading, it is completely incorrect to say that w3schools is not a reputable source. It is highly reputable, in fact it is the most often sourced site for articles on browser share statistics. Type in "browser market share" in Google, what is the first site you see.
The question isn't whether it is "reputable", the question is whether it is a reasonable proxy for desktop market share. I, and w3schools for that matter, fully admit that it isn't a perfect means for measurement. Is it more biased to measure "techie" users, and therefore unduly favors Linux? Perhaps. But, that is certainly debatable, and I haven't heard any arguments that seal the deal on why it would unduly bias towards linux users. It's attracting web designers, and by most accounts, Linux ain't actually the best when it comes to web dev programming tools. (please, not trying to start a flame on that if you love Bluefish or Screem...I'm sure they're great).
If Google were to make brower share by OS for their site public information, clearly that would be a far more accurate measurement. But, for now, this is one of the best available proxies. Perfect? No. Reasonable? Yes. Are there better sources? Please do tell.
Does it further the argument to simply state that common sense would tell you that OSX has a bigger market share? No. Common sense would tell you that if one product is bombarding you with their marketing message through countless advertisements, and another has virtually no media presence at all, that will most certainly shape consumer's perceived (read assumed) market presence and prevalence.
So, does OSX have the lead over Linux? Probably so. But I'd bet it isn't nearly as wide of a gap as you assume and argue.

[ComplexNumber]

it is completely incorrect to say that w3schools is not a reputable source. its not so much that its not reputable. its just that i don't think its a very good indcator by any stretch of the imagination. in fact, its quite a poor indicator. their demographics are very limited and somewhat skewed. its not a good idea to judge from any one site anyway.

[bjweeks]

The entire base of your argument is stupid, ohhh awww one site has more linux visitors. "Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2006 third quarter ended July 1, 2006." "Apple shipped 1,327,000 Macintosh® computers"

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

And because Safari has more market share than the whole OS. :rolleyes:

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0

[aleska]

By the way, apologies to all. I didn't mean for this to become debate club. I thought it was an interesting topic for discussion. The whole matter reminds me of a very funny post (http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/post_4.html) zefrank made on "the show" a few weeks ago. One of his viewers chastizes him for bastardizing complex topics such as copyright infringement, because, in the users words, covering a topic superficially is just as bad as misconstruing it. Ze applauds the user for providing lots of words without providing any additional information on copyright and still appear like you know what you are talking about. Ze encourages us all with the great news that, "the cool thing is that anyone can do that! Just say, 'well, it's a little more complicated than that'".

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/post_4.html

[aleska]

I made last post before seeing your latest post. Awesome post! I can appreciate that argument much better; that's what I like. Not so much the assertion that my entire argument is stupid, or the sarcasm employed (I've found those approaches don't actually influence opinions...not mine anyway), but your use of sourced facts or information to back up your position. So...cool. I mean that sincerely.
If indeed the company Netapplications is a better source and proxy for browser market share than w3schools, then you make a great point.
I don't know anything about them. I don't know who their clients are, they only had one customer testimonial on the site, and I wasn't familiar with the company (appeared to be some sort of ASP). So, I don't know what their sample size is, or what it is representative of, or which OS they may be biased towards.
Anyway, its a good counterpoint. Unfortunately, I don't see anything that would lead me to believe that "hitslink" by Net Applications is a more credible source on browser share than w3schools.
Hoepfuly we can all agree that Google would be the best source...and since the answer to this question seems to be so darn important to all of us, maybe we should start petitioning them to release that info. We all know that AOL would do it in a minute, they'll release anything, but that would be pointless since their customers are all windows drones by definition.
Thanks for the conversation.
Regards,
aleska

[3rdalbum]

The only way to find out the market share of operating systems is through a census. W3schools is for technically-inclined people, so it skews toward Linux users. But then, many Linux users have the User Agent Switcher plugin for Firefox, so their web browser identifies itself as IE 6 on Win XP. Even Google isn't a reliable source; Linux users are known to RTFM much more than Windows users, meaning that they use Google more. But then, the Google start page is bypassed by the search bar in Firefox.

So basically, all web-based results get skewed in one or more ways, so it becomes impossible to determine from these results, what marketshare Linux has.

I would say that Linux desktop marketshare is probably at 1.5 percent, and Mac usage is higher than 2.5 percent. Remember, there are some countries where Linux is well-used.

[aysiu]

I don't see it as being that off.

This is from an article published 11 November, 2005 (http://www.pcwelt.de/index.cfm?pid=829&pk=125214):
Companies have been slow to embrace Linux as a desktop operating system, in sharp contrast to the rapid adoption of the open-source software as a server operating system. But that situation is set to change, with market analyst IDC forecasting that 17 million PCs worldwide will be running desktop Linux by 2008. At present, Linux has a 2.5 percent share of the desktop operating system market based on shipments, according to IDC, with that figure set to reach 9 percent by 2008. Shipments means preloaded Linux workstations, so that doesn't count the millions of people who have installed Linux themselves on their previously Windows- or Mac-preloaded PCs at home.

And according to this article published on 20 July, 2006 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060720.SRTECHVISTA/TPStory/Business):
Still, the market share division between Windows-based PCs and Macs is lopsided, to say the least. In 2005, Apple's total desktop and notebook computer share in Canada was 4.2 per cent, up from 3.3 per cent in 2004, according to Eddie Chan, IDC Canada research analyst. The rest of the personal computer market, but for a fraction of a point, is controlled by Windows-based PCs. That's in Canada, not worldwide. Keep in mind that Apple has stores only in Canada, the US, the UK, and Japan, (http://www.apple.com/retail/storelist/) so it's likely that Canada has a higher concentration of Apple computers than worldwide.

If anyone has better statistics than that, please post them. I tried digging around the net, but it's hard to get good, solid info on market share.


Well, Linux and Mac are neck-n-neck. 3.5% vs 3.6%. In any case, I think saying they're both around 3% is probably pretty close to the real deal.

Just for fun, though, my Psychocats site is really skewed, and I thought you might want to see just how skewed it is (I have a lot of Ubuntu tutorials on it):

Windows: 152,162 hits, 58.7%
Linux: 93,353 hits, 36%
Mac: 8,204 hits, 3.1%
Unknown: 4,884 hits, 1.8%

[ComplexNumber]

Shipments means preloaded Linux workstations, so that doesn't count the millions of people who have installed Linux themselves on their previously Windows- or Mac-preloaded PCs at home. or the sheer amount of people who dual boot. i think that could easily skew the figures to make it appear that linux has a lower market share than is apparent.

[mostwanted]

Just for fun, though, my Psychocats site is really skewed, and I thought you might want to see just how skewed it is (I have a lot of Ubuntu tutorials on it):

Windows: 152,162 hits, 58.7%
Linux: 93,353 hits, 36%
Mac: 8,204 hits, 3.1%
Unknown: 4,884 hits, 1.8%

I would have thought Linux users were in the majority, though. Many people must come to read your essays and the "Just beginning" section of your tutorials while they're on Windows.

[Ptero-4]

The point here is, If I'm correct, that both linux and OSX are steadily eating up at ******* marketshare which is good.

[DoctorMO]

It'll be slower for Linux while there is no adverts, grass roots could spring upon us but I know far too many experts in the coputer field that have a lot of power over their local market who are completly unchangable. my uncle for one, owns a computer shop and won't touch it. and he's giving out advice all the time that it's better and easyer to piret Windows and various other software in complete ignorance to the posibilities.

A difficult one, if we could just capture the imagenation of the small computer shop (at least in the uk) and dispelling the myth that Linux is for programmers and is too hard or not worth the hastle.

[bjweeks]

The point here is, If I'm correct, that both linux and OSX are steadily eating up at ******* marketshare which is good.

It's good because it's going make Mircosoft have to compete, I know how much you guys hate MS but 3 good OSs are better than 2.


Hoepfuly we can all agree that Google would be the best source...

Google is skewed against Windows because most users can't figure out how to change their home page from MSN :rolleyes:

[kaamos]

w3schools is not reputable source, and common sense says that OSX has a bigger market share.

Wow, this has got the worst reasoning I've seen in a while..


People who use Linux: Nerds and their friends and family.

Schools (haven't seen any mac thin clients around..), universities (the one I'm at has around 200 desktops running debian) the city of München and so on.. Your view seems a bit limited. :P

[weekend warrior]

Very limited indeed, :-s :razz:

The regional gov't of Extremadura in Spain has 80,000 desktops running Linux (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=12611) in schools, health centers, hospitals and employment offices.

[aleska]

Google is skewed against Windows because most users can't figure out how to change their home page from MSN :rolleyes:

:) Ah, yes, I hadn't thought about that. Good point. It's a wonder they can even figure out where to plug in the ethernet cable and even access the net ;)

[Iandefor]

I'm curious how browser share is anywhere near a reliable indicator of operating system usage. It strikes me that the deviations introduced by Windows users using Firefox and Opera alone would be sufficient to render the data useless, assuming your source truly gives us a random sampling of the population, an assumption it seems has come under question.

[ComplexNumber]

I'm curious how browser share is anywhere near a reliable indicator of operating system usage. thats because its not ;).
it can give WILDLY different results. its a bit like gauging how many people voted tory in the whole of britain by counting the number of people in newcastle who go to the conservative club each weekend for a pint.