NewsFactor: Behind the Scenes: Microsoft’s Server Dominance

“Despite a gain of 35 percent in Linux-server factory revenue in
the first quarter of 2003, to US$583 million, Microsoft still is
sitting pretty, according to market statistics from IDC. During the
same period, the Windows server market grew about 10 percent to
$3.2 billion, (Unix-server factory sales declined about 13 percent,
to $4.3 billion.)

“Why has Microsoft been able to hold onto server market share
when it is competing against a more secure, lower-cost alternative
like Linux? Any number of reasons can be cited–inertia on the part
of CTOs, a dearth of applications that run on Linux, an aggressive
ad-hoc strategy by Microsoft to thwart defections to open source
Latest News about open source–take your pick.

“The real question is how Microsoft is going to hold onto this
rather chunky slice of the server pie. Linux already has made
inroads against Microsoft at the edge of the network, and the data
center might not be far behind…”

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