What Will We Use on June 30, 2011?

Yesterday was Groundhog Day. It is a fun American tradition where a large rodent from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania “whispers” in his caretakers ear to declare early spring or six more weeks of winter on each year of February 2. Everybody knows that winter has to end. Most want winter to end soon, save those who enjoy snow-related sports. We all logically know that a groundhog has no control over the weather, yet these predictions are followed by millions of Americans with hope for sunny days ahead.

Today, I, a life-long Pennsylvania resident I declare early victory with 1/3 of the bet behind this blog: Microsoft will no longer have majority market share on June 30, 2011.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Microsoft no longer has a majority browser market share.

W3Counter watched the traffic of the 32,245 customer websites for the 31 days of January 2010 and reported 49.7% Internet Explorer use. I knew this day was afoot and I predicted IE’s demise at the end February 2010 two months ago. Thanks to all of you who signed up for a free w3counter account, we all get the best global market share reports.

Dan Grossman of W3Counter, also of Pennsylvania, put together these beautiful graphs that show the trends specific to Microsoft Internet Explorer’s demise. Observe the users of the legacy product, Internet Explorer 6 declining over time and look how other Microsoft products fail to directly answer the version 6 loss.

As far as browsers go, the “what will we use” question has been answered: Open source browsers such as Firefox and Chrome seem to be taking Microsoft’s market share. GandhiCon 4 here we come.

Sure, I am a crazy Linux using, free software loving, groundhog watching, winter loathing, anti-Microsoft FUD spreading, Pennsylvanian who correctly predicted browser market share.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. It was not for lack of things to write about. Nor am I afraid of any trolls. Instead I had to pause to take care of something in my life that has nothing to do with the question of “What will we use on June 30, 2011?”

During this time, I have been able to reflect on my surroundings. I will give you one story from my time on the ground. While in a waiting room, I met a woman who saw my netbook with my ubuntu user sticker. She proudly told me that her home has been Microsoft-free for years. When I showed her this blog, she asked me what I thought of the Bill and Melinda Foundation’s recent contribution to Pittsburgh Public Schools. I thought about it and replied that IF this is an attempt to get more Microsoft in front of children, then $40 million in 2010 is  too little too late. You see, for about 30 years a local super market chain called “Giant Eagle” has been buying Apple products for schools in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio as a customer rewards program called “Apples for Students.” Bug one was never really an issue around here – not in the 1980’s and not today. When I graduated from Baldwin High School in a suburb of Pittsburgh, I used Netscape, Applewriter, and MacOS. It was not until my first college class in 1996 that I had Microsoft products in the classroom thanks to Giant Eagle’s Apples for Students.Was it a good marketing for Giant Eagle to bet against Microsoft? Right now I’m blogging about Giant Eagle and thanking them for caring about the education of generations of children. What will the Class of 2011 of Baldwin High use? Not Microsoft.

Yet another amazing month as December brought in 5,170 new visitors with over 18,000 visitors in total.

Before I get started, I need to apologize that the commenter browser/OS detection plug-in, Browser Sniff, has been reporting falsely for Chrome-based browsers and Windows 7. I use with w3counter for my monthly reports which has nothing to do with Browser Sniff. Rest assured, the reports from w3counter are right on. Just to be sure, I also subscribe to Google Analytics and the numbers line up, month after month.

My preference for web analytic service and market share reports is w3counter. If you have a website and you would like to have some no-cost information on your visitors, sign up for w3counter. Nor do you you need a fancy website, programming skills, or your own domain name. If you can paste one line of html/javascript into your index.html, you too can use w3counter. Everybody can do this. This is another unpaid endorsement from a very happy w3counter customer.

Now onto the browser report of the whatwillweuse.com visitors for the month of December 2009

1     Firefox 3.5      68%
2     Firefox 3.0     13%
3     Internet Explorer 8.0 4%
4     Mozilla 1.9 3%
5     Safari 4.0 2%
6     Chrome 4.0 2%
7     Chrome 3.0 1%
8     Internet Explorer 7.0 1%
9     Identification Blocked 1%
Less than 1% goes to Internet Explorer 6.0

And the Operating System Report of visitors of whatwillweuse.com

1      Windows XP 28%
2     Windows Vista 18%
3     Windows 7 18%

The top 3 make 64%. Where are you team Linux and Apple?

4     Linux 17%
5     Mac OS X 14%
6     Unknown 3%
Less than 1% goes to Windows 2003, iPhone OSX, Windows 2000, iPhone OSX, Windows 2000 and Android. One sole FreeBSD user. Zero ChromeOS visitors yet.

Note: If you read whatwillweuse.com through RSS or a planet feed, your visit is not recorded. Only those who browse whatwillweuse.com are recorded. Therefore, in order to be counted, please type http://whatwillweuse.com at your browser at least once a month. Link-love is always appreciated. Thanks!

Click on the W3Counter logo to see the Browser/Operating system global report for December 2009. Note that the IE global market share is 50.3% according to w3counter. Soon enough, Microsoft will no longer have claim to majority browser market share.

This website and associated services has cost me over $350 for the full 2 years of service. I admit that it is a little silly

Some cold days ahead for Microsoft, thanks to radix999 on flickr

over a $20 bet. When some people make predictions, they say something without ever expecting any accountability. By being as public as possible, I have the opportunity to document the process. I celebrate both the journey and the eventual victory. Some people fly to Las Vegas for March Madness to place a wager on their favorite teams where the wager itself costs more than the trip. No matter how this goes, Nick and I are having a blast along the way.

Discussing the fate of Microsoft been so much fun, one commenter we only know as darryl wants in on the action. My hesitation is not about the money I will not bet you, darryl, 1000 United States dollars because I do not know you. Moreover, your IP address suggests you are from Australia so I don’t know how we could set up such an arrangement. By the way, you never answered my question regarding if you are a Microsoft employee.

In any case, this is my counter offer. I buy 33 shares of Red Hat. You buy 66 shares of Microsoft. Since both companies stock prices are about $30/share, we will accomplish the same idea as your proposal without ever having to meet.

For the record, I never said that Microsoft is evil. It is actually a little said says I, a Microsoft user since 1992 and a Linux user since 1999. Microsoft used to make products which made customers happy. That all changed with Vista. Without Bill Gates, Microsoft has been sinking in turbulent seas. So what is Microsoft doing about it? They’re hiring a “Competitive Marketing Manager.” and strangely, I meet the qualifications. Should I apply?

Nah… I will just stick to my wacky prediction:

Come June 30, 2011, Microsoft will no longer have majority market share.

Since I am footing the hosting bill of whatwillweuse.com, I invite you, the reader, to make your own technology prediction for 2010-2011 on my hosting dime by leaving a comment in this post. I promise to continue to host this post until at least January 4, 2012 to see what happens just for fun.

Here are some examples to get you started…

What will happen with the mobile market?

Will MySQL fork?

What will the clouds look like a year from now?

Will Steve Ballmer be fired?

How far will Apple’s market share grow?

I predicted last month that W3Counter would deliver a less-than-50% IE use on the February 2010 report thus winning 1/3 of the bet.

As I close this post, I wish to toast Microsoft itself, as your Windows have seen better days but bravo for shipping Windows 7 before calendar 2010….

FUD is a Mexican brand of lunch meat and cheese: thanks to camerasutra on Flickr

A commenter a few posts back assertsthat I, Beth Lynn Eicher, give the Free and Open Source community a bad name because I said that Microsoft executes Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt. I could site example by example of where Microsoft spends their time, money, and energy saying bad things about Linux. That’s not what this post is about. Even if I were to make whatwillweuse.com a discussion on deli products instead of the decline of Microsoft, other bloggers would be out there telling that story.  Why in the world have I committed to writing about the decline of Microsoft until June 30, 2011? Well, I made a personal bet with my friend Nick that Microsoft would no longer have majority market share by that date. When I started blogging about the subject in June 2009, I had intended it to be a way for Nick and I to keep tabs on our bet to make it more interesting. I expected maybe a dozen or so mutual friends would get a chuckle out of it. Never would I expect that there would be over 17,500 spectators to the discussion six months later. Agree or disagree, people care about the prediction that there could be a world in the not to distant future with significantly less Microsoft software.

Sure, it would have been nice to be better known for my work with the Ohio LinuxFest and other FOSS volunteer work that I have done for the past ten years. Those who read this blog consistently know I do use this blog to resolve conflict within FOSS.  The debate on if and when Microsoft will fall is something that people want to read, regardless as to who is saying it. If that makes me an anti-Microsoft FUDer, then so be it, but by far I am not alone. The shoe fits. I wear it and advise Microsoft to do the same.

I am not the first to predict Microsoft’s demise with Linux to the better. Heck, I am not even the first to predict a dramatic drop in a 24 month period. Be sure to put Newsweek and Techblorge on your list of people who are calling doom for the software giant. What makes my prediction unique, is I allow you, the spectators of this $20 bet, participate in the discussion of what will we use on June 30, 2011. Now that is community.

Early on, Nick gave me several opportunities to back out.  I declined because I was really liking what I was hearing out of Microsoft.  I noticed them taking the time to fight Linux, which makes me wonder why they would do that if they did not perceive a potential for loss of market share. Moreover, for every moment that Microsoft fights with FUD, it brings Linux closer to winning. How does that work? Microsoft can not keep up with both open source and Apple.

The harder they fight the less resources they have to go into product. Customers are running away from Microsoft products. Everyday I see people dumping Windows for Linux or MacOSX. Even former Microsoft apologist, Don Dodge, has gone Google. From what I can see, Microsoft is shrinking. It would be to Microsoft’s benefit to get out of the FUD business and focus on selling out of Windows 7. That way it could be an example of a successful American company like Red Hat instead of General Motors.

So, please keep dishing the FUD, Microsoft. Meanwhile, consider the following…

Mark and Jane know how to rock the market: volume== 11. Photo credit: alternatePhotography

On August 20, 2004, Mark Shuttleworth filed the first trouble ticket that affects the Ubuntu Linux distribution:  “Microsoft has a majority market share.” This blog is based on the bet that this very issue will be resolved by June 30, 2011. On December 17, 2009, Mark Shuttleworth announced that he is stepping aside from being CEO of Cannonical, the sponsoring company of Ubuntu, and handing the reigns over to Jane Silber. Ubuntu User, an up-and-coming magazine specific to the community around the Ubuntu Linux distribution was the first to cover the story.

For most CEOs this would mean cashing out, retirement, or finding another company to found and/or lead. Instead, Mr. Shuttleworth is positioning to be even more intensely focused and committed on the vision in which he founded: making Ubuntu itself the best operating system. Ubuntu already offers an awesome user experience for both free software advocates and your typical home user. Once OEMs recognize the fact Ubuntu is superior to the Windows 7 operating system in value, quality, usability, and performance, Microsoft will lack majority market share. Mr. Shuttleworth is so excited he can taste it. Crank it to 11!

Taking the lead is Ms. Silber. Without question she is also very dedicated to resolving bug one. I include this circa 2008 video for point of reference.

Utimately, this is good news for Canonical, Ubuntu, and Linux. The popularity of Ubuntu is so great that Canonical must grow while focusing on the product quality. It is also good news for me since I am looking forward to collecting Nick’s $20. Nick emailed me privately because he sees the significance. Ubuntu is ready to rock the desktop market share.

I waited awhile to read the commentary from the rest of the media before posting. The response to this issue is overwhelming. If it is true that only 1% of the world’s desktops are Linux, then just for argument’s sake, let us say Ubuntu has about a third of that 1% at 0.33% of the global desktop market share.  Can someone tell me why Google has over 2,500,000 articles on the subject on who is going to be the next Canonical CEO?

As Mark Shuttleworth continues to reach for the stars, Jane Silber will lead Ubuntu through the journey.

In many ways, I am the exception, not the rule.

I am an American which puts me in 4.53% of the world’s population.

I am over 25 years old with a Bachelor’s degree which puts me with 27.4% of my nation’s most educated adults.

I prefer Linux, which some say put me at 1% of the computer user population. My assertion is the 1% is bogus, but that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about how I seek to reach out to the general public. I struggle with this because I am the exception not the rule. Many of my friends involved with Linux and free and open source software have pointed this out to me. This needs to change. Geek girl meet world. Here I come.

Yesterday was an exceptional day for this blog as 508 new visitors showed up, mostly due to clicking on a link back to this blog I left on the Bing blog. Still, Internet Explorer could not muster up even 5% of my website readers.

If my post to the bing blog makes me an Internet troll, I will own that. It is my intention to encourage people to at least image a world with significantly less Microsoft. Let’s just pretend, for one moment, that all Internet Explorer installations were to vanish. What would we use? How many people would panic and believe that the Internet itself had died? Five percent? Maybe Sixty percent? highly unlikely.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that all Internet Explorer users would panic. Also, I assert that many Internet Explorer users may toggle to Firefox based on their mood. All I am saying is that Internet Explorer is not the be-all-end-all of the Internet in the hearts and mind of the majority of the general population.

In order to prove that the world can live with significantly less Microsoft, I need to reach out to the general public. This is why I signed up for Twitter. Do not worry if you are a fan of free software as I will continue to explain why non-proprietary software is better. Hopefully the choir is still with me and will sing with me.

Ultimately, I want people to question their software choices and understand they have a choice. How do I do that with out being elitist or a troll?

The short answer is that it is the default search engine of Internet Explorer. This outage made people realize, at least for 40 minutes, that there are tools out there other than Microsoft.

The claim that Microsoft has majority market share within the browser market is a myth that I have been silently collecting data to debunk. In this post I will reveal some of the reasons I see this as true and discuss the Bing/Internet Explorer market share connection. When you ask people what is the best browser, people seem to vote for Firefox hands-down. Yet, month after month, browser market share reports come out and the results are all over the charts but always in favour of Internet Explorer. The Counter reports just shy of 70%. W3counter reports just a little north of 51%. Meanwhile, “Market Share” by Net Applications reports 63.63% for November yet it has been shedding 1% for many months now. The Counter, W3Counter, and Market Share by Net Applications are analytics services that tell website owners who is visiting their site.

Quick tanget and un-paid endourcement…

Only W3Counter offers this service cost-free as only as you have only one site to watch that get less than 5,000 page views a day. Since W3counter is so accessible to anybody with a website, I declared W3Counter the official market share report of this blog. I was so impressed that I opted to pay for their pro $39.95 per 6 month account even though I already pre-paid for two years of Google Analytics. I prefer the way that W3Counter parses the data for me and how it integrates well with Wordpress, the open source blogging software that runs whatwillweuse.com. If you are using anything else other than W3Counter, please give them a try.

OK, back to Internet Explorer and Bing.

A common market share assertion I hear when it comes to operating system and web browser market share is “Microsoft’s market share is high because that is what came with the computer and people do not switch due to interia.”

People just use what is there. To a certain extent, I will have to agree with that point. But if most people just used what Microsoft put in front of them, I would expect far more than 8% search market share out of Bing, the default search on Internet Explorer. Yahoo! Fiance reports that Bing’s market share is shrinking. Why would people choose to not use a product that they did not have to pay for and is delivered to them from the very first time they turn on their computer?

Change is risky and fearsome, especially those new to computer. Despite the fact that Internet Explorer 6 is an eight years old browser, 12.57% of the web browsing population still uses it. That is why Internet Explorer 6 has one thing going for it though, those with Windows XP have had it installed by default. A Vista system that keeps up with patches runs Internet Explorer 8 and this is why it has a respectable market share at 21.21%. Meanwhile there are 17.36 running Internet Explorer 7. I do not know how Microsoft can deliver a competitve free as in cost product while maintaining all of these versions. Even though Microsoft is working on releasing Internet Explorer 9, they are obligated to continue to support Internet Explorer 6,  a product. Together these numbers add up to 51.14% although only 8 percent, and shrinking, are using IE browser’s default search engine.

I assert three things given the interita theory…

Go Chrome

1. Microsoft Internet Explorer users are primarily using Google and Yahoo! instead. When they visit http://www.google.com they are greeted with an invitation to download Chrome. At least 2% will take Google up on the offer and push Internet Explorer below 50% in less than three months.

2. Perhaps 8% bing usage is a reflection of how many people prefer Microsoft’s products, given the choice. Maybe these Internet Explorer users are small businesses who lack full time IT staff who have permission to install software like web browsers. They may use Internet Explorer in the office because they have to but at home they use Firefox because they want to. Web analytics services that release market share reports will give more merit to the 8 hours of the day that people have opportuntiy to use the browser at their desk instead of the 3 hours of the day they might be able to use their browser at home. This would also explain why people overwhelmingly vote for Firefox when asked about their browser of choice yet market share reports continute to favour Internet Explorer.

3. Those 8% loyal Microsoft customers saw Microsoft not deliver a service that they are pouring millions of dollars in American TV ads to support. They were left asking themselves the question, “what will we use?” and the answer, according to Internet Explorer and Bing, was Yahoo!

Come February 28, 2010, Microsoft will no longer have browser market share.

What will we use now has a twitter account: wwwuse

The amount of links that people have sent me over private email and facebook have been overwhelming. If you have breaking news to bring to our attention, please leave it in the comments or tweet it. Please tag things that talk about Microsoft’s market share as #wwwuse or put it to our attention with @wwwuse.

EDIT: Or @bethlynn if on Identi.ca

A "Demotivational Poster" for Microsoft: "Regrets Those were the droids you were looking for"

So what do you have to say for yourself Microsoft?

As Chairman, Bill Gates stayed pretty silent on the Android issue at the November 19, 2009 stockholders meeting. Steve Ballmer, the current CEO of Microsoft, decided to discuss the issue instead.

“We have greater market share to Google Android. Our objective is to have a leading position among these competitors,” Mr. Ballmer said.

Well, when we have the 4th quarter numbers for SmartPhone market-share, I believe that the Linux-based phone share will be above Microsoft. I do not even think that Nick would bet me another $20. Oh, by the way, Nick has an Android phone. He has been using it since June 2009.

Mr. Ballmer also boldly made another ten year prediction on November 19, 2009.

“When we meet back here in 10 more years, we will look back and say, ‘Wow, wasn’t technology really primitive in 2009? Computers didn’t recognize our speech, they didn’t recognize our gestures .. we didn’t have instantaneous access to the world’s information, we still used pen and paper.’ … Microsoft is investing to be at the forefront of these changes.”

Sorry, Microsoft, you blew it. The Droid already does all that thanks to Google. These were the droids we were looking for.

You had all of the resources to make it happen in 1999:

• You had three of your founders as the richest men in the world. The MSFT stock had peaked at $119 (US $60.928 adjusting for splits) that year. If the 3 billion in research was not enough, you could have found the money somewhere. Now you are only about half of the company value you were ten years go. Where did all the money go? You still do not have a competitive product to show for it. Pink will not pan out. Vaporware is the kindest way to put it. Your own employee put it much more harshly. Success can not be bought.
• You had over ten years between Mr. Gates’ June 15, 1999 testimony and November 6, 2009 Droid release date. Time was on your side as you were already a giant name in computing when Google was a start-up under your radar.
• You had just secured over a hundred licensing agreements for all sorts of “intelligent devices” like personal digital assistants.
• Your company head-count has doubled over the past ten years yet suffers from a brain drain of engineering talent according to this another anonymous Microsoft employee.

How did you let a couple of kids from Stanford who just announced their little search company start-up in the summer of June 1999 beat you to your own Congressional promise?

You a great excuse: you were in court the entire time.

First you had to convince the Unitied States Department of Justice that you were not being monopolistic when it comes to the desktop operating system and web browser. You sited Apple, Linux, and Netscape as competitors in this space. You lost but later you settled with the United States while litigating Netscape to death. Your 750 million settlement with AOL/Netscape bought you browser market share. Even though you supposedly out of court by 2003, you were funding SCO in hopes of killing Linux. Now that SCO is bankrupt, you are busy defending your office suite in court with the Word patent suit and Novell is still suing you over Word Perfect. Do you still find it profitable to sue smaller companies that use Linux in their talking-devices based on the Linux kernel like the TomTom?

You have failed in court.

You fail to profit.

You fail to buy your competitor, Yahoo!

Your corporate ally, Best Buy, is tanking too.

The ultimate problem for you, Microsoft, is that you can not buy and/or sue open source out of business. Sourceforge does not even scratch the surface at 32 million visitors monthly.That’s right are are millions of us who passionately support non-proprietary software that we use. Is that why you have sponsored the open source census? Face it: you can not innovate faster than open source either. With 2 million of user/developer accounts on Sourceforge alone, your 93,000 person company seems really small. PCWorld asks: Has Microsoft Lost the War against Open Soruce? The answer is yes. Some say you died in 2005.

No matter how you look at it, the facts remain. You lost…

• The kernel behind Google Android phones like the Droid is Linux.
• Netscape is now the open source browser Firefox. There have been over 400 million downloads since I made the bet with Nick in June 2009.
• Sun Microsystems, one your targets via SCO suits, is still sponsoring Open Office. In a few short months, you will have lost majority market share to the Open Office suite.
• The Google/Ubuntu hybrid web-optimized Linux system called ChromeOS will hit your operating system, browser, and office suite market share hard.

Think your cloud computing product, “Azure”, can help you? Your lack of attention to high performance computing has sunk your top500.org market share down to an embarrasing 1%. Why should the world trust your ability to perform under a cycle renting paradigm?

It is all over. You failed your users, your government, and your former CEO’s vision. Your market share is tanking and will be less than half by June 30, 2011. Nick will pay me $20. This personal wager made at the South East LinuxFest in June 2009 has enough interest to attract over 12,000 readers in just a few months. A world with significantly less Microsoft is afoot and this website gives people a forum to talk about it.

This is the beginning of the end for you Microsoft.

“On June 30, 2011, Microsoft will lack majority market share,” says Beth Lynn Eicher.