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As I recently reported, there is an order of magnitude difference between the market share of Linux "out there" in the world, and the market share of LInux on Scienceblogs.com and on this very blog. Subsequently, I was trolled by my very own brother "...
While it has an over 20 per cent market share when we speak of servers in India, the free OS called Linux has just around 5 per cent market share in the country when it comes to desktops -- the lion's share going to Microsoft Windows. The scenario is gradually changing, it appears.
NetApplications is out with a couple of new metrics of market share for operating systems and browsers, and the news is good for open source. Topping their findings, Microsoft Windows' market share has dropped below 90 percent for the first time in its measurements. The share erosion is largely attributed to increased interest in the Mac platform, but Linux is cited as on the rise as well.
I have always claimed that the widely used Operating System market share statistics from Net applications were not really accurate when it comes to MacOS and Linux market share. In my opinion there were two factors that prevented an accurate Worldwide market share to be produced: Linux browsers potentially ignoring the counter and improper geographical distribution.
It has been six weeks since Firefox 3 has been released and if we believe market share numbers provided by an ongoing survey of NetApplications, then it appears that Mozilla has had a successful launch with market share gains, especially at the expense of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
Linux market share ... how does one even attempt to measure such a figure? Commercial software can be tabulated by units sold, but when so many copies of Linux operating systems are tossed around the Net for free, who's counting? A few outfits tried recently, and the results caused quite the commotion.
