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Asay: Linux gaining at Windows expense
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Comments (5)
market share
Someone once pointed out to me that a 'normal' market for any given product would be something like 40/30/10, that is , 40%-50% to the top seller, 20%-30% to second place, and, the other 10% to miscellaneous vendors. For too many years Microsoft has held a virtual monopoly in the OS market.. almost 90%+ at some points. It is way past the time when this situation should change.
The whole "market share" idea has too many flaws to use it as an indicator or measure.
For starters, a "market" almost by necessity implies buyers and sellers and some notion of "price", even if the market in question operates without money (ie barter).
What does "market share" mean in this context? Monetary value of copies of PC operating systems sold? Can you even buy Mac OS without buying a Mac? Do pre-installed copies count? If so, at what price? What about commerical Linux distros in this context - any purchase of a Linux distro almost certainly goes on top of a pre-installed Windows installation. What about non-commerical distros, Slackware as perhaps the prime example?
Or does "market share" mean proportion of the computers sold bearing a particular OS? How do you count standalone sales (upgrades from NT 4.0 to Windows XP)?
Or does "market share" mean the same thing as "installed base"? That is, counts of what currently in-use PCs use as operating systems? What about dual-boot machines (WIndows 98 and NT 4.0 wasn't that uncommon a combo)?
The "market" for personal computer operating systems has always had a huge skew, due to IBM's initial adoption of MS-DOS. Ordinarily, this skew would even out, but MSFT played the legal game with equipment OEMs, and kept the intial skew, or even made it worse. And then "network externalities" or "network effects" may even promote some kind of natural monopoly in this "market".
I do agree that by any measure of monopoly power (Herfindahl Index [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index], Four-firm concentration index or any choice of "market share" above) the "market share" of MSFT products has indicated an amazingly concentrated market, in economics terms.
But doesn't the presence of Linux, the various BSDs, and other freebies (VSTA, Atheos, etc etc) really change the nature of "market"? By what measure should we say "Linux has only a 1.2% market share"? On price alone in any given accounting period, it probably has a much lower share.
For starters, a "market" almost by necessity implies buyers and sellers and some notion of "price", even if the market in question operates without money (ie barter).
What does "market share" mean in this context? Monetary value of copies of PC operating systems sold? Can you even buy Mac OS without buying a Mac? Do pre-installed copies count? If so, at what price? What about commerical Linux distros in this context - any purchase of a Linux distro almost certainly goes on top of a pre-installed Windows installation. What about non-commerical distros, Slackware as perhaps the prime example?
Or does "market share" mean proportion of the computers sold bearing a particular OS? How do you count standalone sales (upgrades from NT 4.0 to Windows XP)?
Or does "market share" mean the same thing as "installed base"? That is, counts of what currently in-use PCs use as operating systems? What about dual-boot machines (WIndows 98 and NT 4.0 wasn't that uncommon a combo)?
The "market" for personal computer operating systems has always had a huge skew, due to IBM's initial adoption of MS-DOS. Ordinarily, this skew would even out, but MSFT played the legal game with equipment OEMs, and kept the intial skew, or even made it worse. And then "network externalities" or "network effects" may even promote some kind of natural monopoly in this "market".
I do agree that by any measure of monopoly power (Herfindahl Index [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index], Four-firm concentration index or any choice of "market share" above) the "market share" of MSFT products has indicated an amazingly concentrated market, in economics terms.
But doesn't the presence of Linux, the various BSDs, and other freebies (VSTA, Atheos, etc etc) really change the nature of "market"? By what measure should we say "Linux has only a 1.2% market share"? On price alone in any given accounting period, it probably has a much lower share.
whoo... without getting very technical, it is obvious that this can't be judged in any meaningful way by a money/value figure. Open software vs commercial is a very stickey wicket indeed. I think the estimated installed systems is the only way to evaluate the situation in any kind of real world senario :)
Hard to measure, but easy to see
Corporate Linux installations are probably easier to measure now than they were five years ago when many Linux installations would be "back room" redeployments of old hardware to run Samba and the like, but it's still tricky.
What's not hard to see is the impact Linux has had. We see Microsoft fighting it with a vengeance while other folks are rushing to support it, sell it, or use it.
The truth is that Microsoft has planned to be past marketing and competition at this point. It had wanted to own the desktop and the server room, and to charge whatever it damned well pleased for its products.
It ain't there.
What's not hard to see is the impact Linux has had. We see Microsoft fighting it with a vengeance while other folks are rushing to support it, sell it, or use it.
The truth is that Microsoft has planned to be past marketing and competition at this point. It had wanted to own the desktop and the server room, and to charge whatever it damned well pleased for its products.
It ain't there.
Microsoft abandoned the core of their business where they make money and decided to be the best at things that don't make money: lobbying, practicing law and enforcement.
Ballmer and Gates may consider themselves professional management but aside from taking advantage of the Internet upswing from 1995 -2000, they don't rank anywhere near the top as businessmen. They were at the right place at the right time. Their successful products were purchased from others and they bought a license to DCE which has been the basis of almost all their technology, especially OLE, ActiveX and so on.
Watching them now seems like a sporting event. You sort of know when the team with the high sore has lost its momentum. The momentum swing has definitely taken place and the team with the lead is playing "don't lose". That invariably results in a loss.
We'll see. But, I'll give points if you want to play the spread.
Ballmer and Gates may consider themselves professional management but aside from taking advantage of the Internet upswing from 1995 -2000, they don't rank anywhere near the top as businessmen. They were at the right place at the right time. Their successful products were purchased from others and they bought a license to DCE which has been the basis of almost all their technology, especially OLE, ActiveX and so on.
Watching them now seems like a sporting event. You sort of know when the team with the high sore has lost its momentum. The momentum swing has definitely taken place and the team with the lead is playing "don't lose". That invariably results in a loss.
We'll see. But, I'll give points if you want to play the spread.
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