Is Linux’s Marketshare Closer to 20% Or More?
Recently, I have written some posts about Linux’s marketshare and how to know what it is. Today, I want to entertain a completely different possibility.
I think everyone would agree that there is no definitive way to be able to say for sure what each OS’s marketshare is. It just is not technically possible at this point, as far I know. We do have a lot of evidence, ranging for statistics from the data web browsers report to web pages to people’s general feeling about how many people around them use Linux. Of the information we have, all of it has major flaws that essentially make the results irrelevant. Plus, none of it agrees with any of the other pieces of evidence.
What I want to suggest is that the fact that you cannot prove what the marketshare is, combined with general perceptions that computers are Windows, combined with Microsoft and Apple’s PR all make it perfectly possible that Linux’s marketshare is, in fact, closer to 15% or 30%, making it possibly more than the Mac. After all, a lot seems to suggest that the Mac is weak outside the US and Linux has cought on more outside the US. But hey, that is just a guess too!
The fact is, we have no real evidence and no way of getting real evidence, so, until we get some good evidence, we shouldn’t just assume no one uses Linux.
What do you think? Is it possible we are all underestimating Linux? Have you thought this all along?
August 27th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Perhaps the more important question is ‘is Linux market share growing?’ All the things that make an OS useable to customers, such as good hardware compatibility, have improved beyond recognition, giving new users a positive experience. The Netbooks are showcasing Linux, a kind of free advertising, and a good experience there will hopefully make folks curious to find out more. Thats growth……………….
August 27th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I actually agree because I have personally met more people in my country using linux than mac. I have even converted a few myself. Plus, I have also seen that whilst trying to get configurations for my edge modem on my linux system, that most of the tutorials were written by Bangladeshis( I live in Bangladesh). I’ve also heard about a considerable number of schools and businesses switching over to linux in the neighbouring nations(e.g. India).
August 28th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I’m sure that most of those users who keep up with Ubuntu first tried it, and then if it worked out of the box, they hung onto it…
Then they will naturally get a self-acknowledgement and try to get their tricky devices to work ..
if (success) {
smile(alot);
echo “You have officially become a Linux user, and might consider using it in the future ..
}
else {
curse(fuckLinux);
echo “Back to prop OS”
}
That is why I think that recently Ubuntu has got so much attention, because the apt-system is actually a great package manager, and by now it has alot more support from the users and the writers of the programs than rpm had in the old 2.4 kernel days.
The key elements of the gain in Linux popularity I think is:
- Ubuntu is one of the best Debian-based distributions which aim at non-technical users.
- Ubuntu created a new repository for Debian, which is less strict and more recently updated, many Debian users actually run with Ubuntu-repos.
- The 2.6 kernel was a major improvement and got rid of alot of ugly hacks, for example the need of enabling SCSI-emulation for burning with IDE-burners, and also alot of new hardware support was introduced ..
Last I have to say, I do not use Ubuntu, and I do not think it’s the perfect desktop distribution, I’ve tried it, it didn’t talk to me. I’ve used Debian, Gentoo, and now ArchLinux, and if Ubuntu should attract even more attention I think they should adopt a combination of ABS from ArchLinux and the program “checkinstall” for automation of .deb debian-packages.
One more note, I can’t wait to see 2.8, or 3.0 .. This might be the big bang ..
August 28th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Linux market share might be near Mac’s, but Mac’s has been growing really quickly lately. Even if they are the same, we’re talking 4% each.
I personally have seen three computers running Linux in this country, and they all belong to me. Until Linux runs Starcraft natively and the government stops requiring ActiveX plugins for e-banking, the Linux share here will remain at 0.01%.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Based on my observations, the market share of Linux is roughly the same as Apple’s. There’s so much Linux out there that it’s clear that anyone claiming a figure like 1% is probably tied in to the trade media that hasn’t figured out how to monetize Linux.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I’ve managed to convert 6 people over 2 years. 2 room mates (fairly computer literate), 2 former bosses (comp techs who were scared of linux) and 2 not so savvy people who did it because I said it was the right thing to do. I run a variety of systems at home, mostly Sabayon. But I also have a Vista install for gaming reasons. I had a bit of fun over 3 days of vacation with my laptop, doing various things to get access to computers on wireless networks here. Out of the 60-80 wireless networks I tapped into, only 4 were using linux systems (4, on 2 of the 60-80 networks), out of a total of 190+ systems seen. maybe a 10% market share, but i doubt any higher to be honest.
But as a side note, I work for Lowes, and in the company, each store has only 10 pc’s with windows for reasons of software problems. 1 in hr and 1 in the training room plus (god knows why) 5 self checkout systems and 3 kitchen cabinet design systems. total linux pcs at my store, 41. i think. spread over the store with 1-4 stations per desk. maybe 50-60 since i havent been in the server room to see how many are in there, but i’d assume 4-5.
The flip side, they picked ms for the webmail setup they have running. it uses outlook live plus a bunch of ms servers. god knows why they did this, but i’m guessing they got a “deal” and forgot that they could have done it with google helping them along and paid a whole bunch less to accomplish it. i cant seem to get any of the lowes tech (as opposed to mis tech support) people on the phone to ask why and all of my emails have gone unanswered.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Oh… This may have also been more of a ploy by Lowes to be different then HD. HD runs all windows based systems when i worked there. they might be on xp now for some of their stations if i remember right.
On another side note, they recently updated our OS [named Lowes Linux] to a newer kernel and an updated Xorg setup as well as FF 2.0, instead of the old mozilla they were running. It runs much faster and smoother on the old hardware then the old version did. this is just to prove that older hw support and hw support in general as well as optimization in the kernel and system have come a long ways since I first used linux in ‘00.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Nafees brings up a good point. I think that a lot of the “market share” estimates are focused on the USA and/or European countries. Due to my line of work, I happen to regularly communicate with a number of people in various non-European countries.
Once, I was chatting on Skype with a friend in Mexico, about to try to convince him to switch to Linux. It turned out that some geek friends of him already had. I have a friend in China who I had convinced to switch about a year ago. Recently she needed tech support, and instead of emailing me, she had a local geek fix her problem.
I’ve seen similar stories from various parts of the world. It would be interesting to have a study that is truly international, and not funded by Microsoft.
Also, you must define “market share.” If you define that by the number of OS disk sales, of course Linux is going to show up as 1%.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I’ve done several wet finger in the air calculations, and by my reckoning Linux market share has to be more than 5%, simply based on the fact that every Linux convert I’ve made started from a Windows sale, indeed every computer I’ve purchased in the last 8 years (20), and they all run Mandriva Linux now, started as a Windows sale. In fact most of them ever actually ran windows, I fired them up on a live CD in the shop, and replaced the OS without ever booting into windows, the same goes for at least half of the Linux converts I’ve made, we went and found the machine they wanted, checked it out with a live CD and never bothered to boot into Windows, and simply reformated the hard drive and installed Mandriva Linux.
.
I think the only people who really have a good Idea of how many Linux machines there are is Microsoft, based on the number of licenses they’ve sold, minus the number of licenses not accepted, and possibly some calculation based on the number of licenses that stop phoning home. That may well explain a lot of the posturing we’ve seen from Microsoft.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Most PC magazines have Linux distributions on the coverdisc. No PC magazines have Mac OS X on their coverdisc. You can install Linux onto someone else’s existing computer, but it’s a heck of a lot harder to do the same with Mac OS X, and if you’re a legit Mac user you wouldn’t do it anyway.
Big parts of China and India are roughly 50% Linux, and have been for a number of years. Mac use in China and India is probably lower than 0.8%.
Linux definitely has more marketshare than Mac OS X.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Yeah, you are right…I think we might all be surprised at the real numbers should they ever be calculated. And to back you up a bit, let me offer a bit of empirical data that confounds the question even more.
I install Linux on people’s computers for a living and yes…you can make a living at it. We do both home and office installs. According to our research and the research done independently by some other interested parties, our company HeliOS Solutions is the first of it’s kind at least in the us. We’ve even “open sourced” our business plan so others can copy our efforts. You can see a bit of what we do at http://www.fixedbylinux.com You can also hit the contact us button and I will send our business plan to anyone who honestly wants to give this a go.
I installed Linux on 1, 343 computers in 2007. 228 of those machines were hand built by myself and given to kids that cannot afford computers in the Austin Area. That part of our operation is called HeliOS Project and can be seen at http://www.fixedbylinux.com/about Now I know in the scheme of things, that is a fairly insignificant number, but what if there were 100 or even 1000 “heliOS Solutions” in the US and they achieved the same numbers or greater. Would those numbers of Linux machines get folded into the statistics? What about the Lindependence project which is about to blow into Portland Oregon and do on a much greater scale what we did in Felton?
It was a rhetorical question…
Besides, anyone suggesting that they can trust any number of Linux computers calculated by MS or even one of their “windows shops” are immediately suspect.
Again, I think we’d all be surprised at the real totals.
h
September 1st, 2008 at 8:00 am
Hello Helios.
Very interesting business you have there, and great that there’s plenty of jobs for you..
I have a few questions about it:
- How do you handle weird pieces of hardware and wishes of getting various WEIRD USB-devices to work or how do you prepare them on getting used to not buying every piece of hardware off the shelves in the stores and expecting it will work out of the box?
- Do you get donated computers in the “Buck-a-month” project?
- What is the worst case scenarios of helping someone with Linux for your company’s case? I would like to know what people expect from it ..
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Ken, have you done any follow-up on the Linux boxes you’ve placed to see how many are still on Linux?
I haven’t placed anywhere near as many Linux machines as you have, but I will tell you I find it demoralizing when those boxes come back for service with a pirated copy of Windows and all the horrors that go along with that.
I really think it important to get Linux out into the community, but I suspect the real measure of success lies not in the number of boxes placed, but how many stay on Linux once they’re in the hands of their end users.
Keep up the good work
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I live in the boonies of rural SW Oregon. People around here have heard of linux but can’t find it at ‘the computer store’ (Ofc*epot or W*art). But when I leave an old linux CD in front of the grocery it gets snapped up in 2 minutes. Meanwhile Granny WinUser has to pay $75 every few months to get her disk cleaned/reloaded.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Apple does publish unit sales figures in their 10-Q filed with the SEC. They are selling about 3% of the world’s PCs.
The past year is like a breath of fresh air. Everyone is producing netbooks with GNU/Linux. China will sell one this month for $98. Pity they have only a few production lines. At that price they should sell out in every market. Those cheap boxes run GNU/Linux only. Christmas will be good to the netbook this year.