This blog has been about Microsoft and its market share.

Specifically, on June 2009 I bet my friend Nick that Microsoft would lack a majority market share come June 2011. We discussed the three products that HAD the majority market share as of the summer of 2009:

1. Microsoft Internet Explorer for browsers
2. Microsoft Office for office suites
3. Microsoft Windows for operating systems

Due to personal reasons, we did not conclude this project properly.

It was too time intensive to research the true market share of Microsoft products. It is without question that Microsoft no longer holds the majority market share on browsers, now with about 30% of the market share. The office suite question is still under debate due to Google Apps. Also under consideration is if tablets replace the desktop.

In summary, the question all along should have been “What will we count?” as office suites and operating system platforms instead of “What will we use?”

Without question, Microsoft is struggling to stay relevant as revenues plummet. Indeed, upon 2011 year close Microsoft is a different company. It is sad. I do not want Microsoft to fold. Competition is good even for the Apple and Linux-based products I prefer using.

After-all, I am a MSFT stock-holder.

By what measures do you judge the success of the FSF’s public advocacy campaigns, and how do you think they have been doing?

Below is my reply. Comments, as always, are welcome.

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Dear Mr. Sullivan,

First of all, congratulations in your new role.

You asked for comments and criticism on FSF campaigns, so here is it.

How do I measure a campaign’s success? Does it result in market share change? Is there positive brand recognition? Does the general public come away thinking good thoughts about Free Software or are they lost in scary geeky confusion?

With the rest of this letter, I will discuss several FSF campaigns and mantras. Where the FSF does well and areas that could do a little better.

I would like to see The FSF to be a beacon for all of Free culture. Specifically, work more with obvious allies like MediaWiki, Archive.org, Xiph.org, and Creative Commons. I loved the film “Patent Absurdity” and your collaboration with the Software Freedom Law Center. Any time you see allies, I want to see FSF to think Win-Win as I saw in that film.

I want to see FSF to not hold such harsh criticism to those who use semantics that you do not agree with. You can gently continue to remind people who say “Open Source” or “Linux” without the GNU. Refusing to go to events or help projects by people who do not use your language is a missed opportunity to gently make your point. The current posture is elitist and “my way or the highway.”

The “GNU/Linux vs Linux” argument is the very reason that I was convinced from 1999-2009 that the FSF wouldn’t even want me to be a member. Eventually I became a member anyhow since my freedom is much too important.

It is cool that the FSF continues to use “GNU/Linux.” Depending on the audience, or the level of specificity I need, I will say “GNU/Linux” too. But, when talking to the general public I say, “I use Linux.” I get two typical answers to that “Oh, my friend uses Ubuntu!” or “Gee, I’m not a computer wiz like you.” I’m sorry but “GNU/Linux” is not brand-recognizable in the world domination scale.

In this day in age, it is difficult enough for products based on the kernel such as Android or WebOS for me to shout from the mountaintops “Linux is winning” let alone, “GNU/Linux is winning.”  Some desktop distributions such as Fedora have dropped the word “Linux” purposely from their product name. Would the FSF rather that no one would say “Linux?!?”

Furthermore, would you rather people who say “Open Source” not become FSF members? We spend so much time using of neutral terms such as “non-proprietary” or acronyms such as FLOSS so that we don’t offend the Free Software Foundation’s hard line. When someone does say “Open Source” instead, a pedantic argument ensues, making both sides of the argument look childish to someone who has not yet committed to freedom. By the 20 times effective frequency theory, the “Free Software” brand nor the “Open Source” brand will sound appealing, even after they’ve heard it 20 times after all this negativity.

I actually jealous of those whose native language isn’t English because they are less likely to hear the “Open Source” bashing. We all get enough FUD from proprietary software, and our great foe Microsoft. Free Software has won in emerging economies such as Brazil and powerhouses such as France, Russia, and China.  It is time we focus on what is important.

I would rather the FSF focus on unity. I loved the “working together” campaign. Build on where we all agree. Politely say, “excuse me ‘Free Software’” when someone says “Open Source” and move on. Check out Open Respect. There is a respectful way to assert your point of view so please for heavens sakes, drop the anger. I know we can all be friends. Really.

Finally, a conversation about The Free Software Foundation’s campaigns would not be complete without mentioning “The Party of GNO.” Yes, I agree that Windows 7 is “sinful” and that iPhones are “defective by design.” I understand these things because I am I freedom loving person. Someone who does not yet understand freedom yet sees the FSF as a group of judgemental purist freaks who make Free Software sound non-fun.

I would rather campaigns that promote the advancement and use of Free Software. Software Freedom Day is awesome. Funding GNASH as a high-priority project is great. I want people to want to use Free Software because it is the most beautiful, the most useful, the most fun software out there. No one should have to compromise their freedom for that one application or driver. Sadly we are not there yet, but we are oh so close.

Please focus on bridging gaps where there are not great Free Software options and the celebrating success of outstanding Free Software projects. That is the the Free Software Foundation I want to support.

Thank you for taking the time to have this discussion with your members. I’m really looking forward to your thoughts after your Mid-May contemplation.

Sincerely,
Beth Lynn Eicher

For those wondering the answer: What will we use if Microsoft is not the majority market share?
The answer is iOS and Linux. Apple and Google Android tablets will be the back to school computer of choice as of this summer creating a devastating trend for Microsoft.

Microsoft is unable to buy market share at top Computer Science universities such as Carnegie Mellon. Despite a 20 million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Foundation, desktop users still prefer Linux to Microsoft Windows. Inside the very house that Gates built, you will not find a single Windows computer in their labs. Red Hat fixed that by funding computer labs there.

I will personally pay a visit to the Red Hat labs at Carnegie Mellon University on Monday March 7 – and you are welcome to join me. Just sign up!

I have no idea how accurate their estimate is or exactly how they got it, but that’s not something I’m worried about here.

Most of the articles that I’ve seen about it are more focused on what could be done to fix this. They particularly focus on issues like whether China’s government itself will take more action to cut down on the use of unlicensed software.

There’s another question here, though. Statistics from just a couple of months ago still show that 45.2% of Internet users in China are using IE6. Considering that you can’t run IE6 on the latest Microsoft operating systems, they’re not just using software that they haven’t paid Microsoft for, they’re using really old software that they haven’t paid Microsoft for.

If the company gets the crackdown that they want, what’s going to happen to their market share? We’re talking about a large population of people who are used to not having to pay for their operating system and aren’t already accustomed to using the most modern versions of Windows. A crackdown would put them in the position of having to pay money they’re not used to paying for software that’s gone through some fairly major interface changes compared to what they’re used to using.

Cracking down will probably get some people to pay, but others may very well decide to have a look at the alternatives that are still free. Depending on how the people of China feel about Microsoft demanding that they pay up, this could have serious implications for the company’s market share.

What will we buy?

To answer this question I took to the malls earlier this week.

A Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 phone?

There a Windows Mobile 7 ad was a placemat in the mall food court. The same ad was on the mall doors. Even if I wanted this phone after seeing this add, this product was hard to be found. Only the AT&T store seemed to be selling the Microsoft product. I visited the store and saw one sales person who was aggressively standing in the mall coordinator to attempt to invite shoppers into his store.

What will we buy instead?

The Verizon store was too busy selling Apple iPads, 7 inch Samsung
Galaxy Tab Tablets with Google Android, and the “Droid” line of
Android phones. The T-Mobile Store was too busy selling the Galaxy Tabs
and other Android products. The Sprint store is enjoying sales of the
4G Evo Android phone and the HP Palm WebOS (Linux) phone. RadioShack, a
store that sells phones under many carriers was not selling any
Microsoft phones.

The Barnes and Noble were selling their Android color book reader called the Nook. Even though this product has impressive hardware for an eReader, it unfortunately lacks access to the Android market.

Sears had three Android devices to sell this weekend: The 10 inch Viewsonic G-Tablet, the 7 inch Pandigital eReader, and the Velocity Micro 7inch Tablet.

But what about those Windows 7 netbooks which are subsidized cost by Mobile Wireless plans?

At the Verizon store there was a line to touch the Galaxy Tab and the iPad. Once I got my turn, I snapped the photo to the right. Note that there are two netbooks positioned above the Galaxy Tabs. To the right, not pictured, was the line to see the iPad. Nobody was here to buy the Microsoft netbooks. Everyone was here to lay their hands on the tablets.

Sears is also selling the 7″ Sylvania netbook with runs WindowsCE, a 15 year old operating
system from Microsoft. This device is sure to disappoint customers as it lacks full Flash functionality for YouTube and Facebook games.

OK commenter. What will you buy this holiday season?

A. A Microsoft-powered phone/netbook/tablet?

B. An Apple product which uses iOS such as iPhone, iPad, or iPod
Shuffle.

C. An Apple product which uses MacOSX such as the Airbook.

D. An Android-powered phone, tablet, or eReader.

E. Waiting for stores to carry an ARM-powered Ubuntu or ChromeOS device.

F. none of the above…. Please explain….

As of October 31, according to w3counter:

• Microsoft Windows holds 79.69% market share, a 1.53% decrease from last month.
• Windows XP is the most predominate at 44.17%.
• GNU/Linux has a 1.49% market share.
• Iphone has 1.31% market share.
• Android has 0.25%.
• Internet Explorer continues to plummet. We are now using IE 41.6% which is down by 1.7% from last month.
• Don’t believe the FUD. There is no significant market share of IE9.

Microsoft’s market share is surely on the decline but will it have a minority market share come June 30, 2010?

Measuring market share is much more difficult that we had anticipated when we embarked on this project in June 2009. Web traffic is certainly an indicator of trends but it is highly skewed to the American and English speaking world who visits commercial websites. W3counter is the best in class since they have better global and website type diversity.

It is due to the web analytic market share counters that the myth of “Linux is 1% of the market share” persists. We present three reasons below.

1. Totally off-the grid systems do not get counted.

• 1,494,500 deployed by One Laptop Per Child.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux desktops, SuSE Enterprise Linux Desktop, or Ubuntu desktops on corporate or government networks behind a firewall.
• Appliance deployments like cash registers.

2. Nor do research institutions and Universities get properly counted.

For example, Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science uses Fedora on the desktop but it does not show up in Fedora’s update statistics. Why? The version of Fedora is so heavily customized to the environment that it needs its own update mechanism. None the less, with 26,307,719 unique ip addresses getting Fedora updates, Fedora alone must have have greater than 1% desktop market share.

3. I agree with Caitlyn Martin, with all of the netbook sales, something is not adding up.

A commenter asked for a 2009 and a 2010 market share report for netbooks. Here is one from November 2009 reporting 1/3 Linux market share. Regretfully, I have nothing for 2010 since the scoop is that netbooks are losing market share overall to iPad tablets. Never fear Linux Fans, The Android Samsung Galaxy Tab 7″ tablet has only been out for a month and has been selling nicely. By the way, Microsoft still lacks a significant market share in tablets.

We won’t stand for the lies behind the 1% myth any more.

We as non-Microsoft users need to stand up and say what we are using. If you use GNU/Linux, I urge you to participate in the Dudalibre “We > 1%” campaign. It takes one minute to say which distro you use.

Poke for my Fedora Friends: Does Fedora really only have 2.84% of the Linux desktop market share? Does Red Hat Enterprise Linux really have only 0.33% of the Linux desktop market share? Really?!? Take pride and say what you use.

When the truth comes out, Microsoft will not have a majority market share come June 30, 2011.

When I was in elementary school, the method of work submission was a notebook and a standard number two pencil. Handwriting, not computing, was a daily class. A teacher told me once that the pencil was empowering so use it for all it is worth.

Microsoft products were not used in my school until my final year of high school and that was the first time I used Microsoft Works for Macintosh. The teachers saw my enthusiasm for technology so I was sent to private university. There I learned how to use Microsoft Powerpoint with other 16-year-olds. The university offered to give me credit for my study if I could pay the $15,000 a semester to enrol there full time. Coming from a middle class home, I went to a public community college instead for a 10th of the price. What did I use as an office suite my freshman year of college? The market share holder at the time: Corel Word Perfect.

Money is a huge factor when parents and children are selecting a school at all levels.

Today’s schools in America are strapped for cash. Assuming the school has computers, technology refreshes are expensive. Donations from the community are absolutely necessary. What do students need to today to do their school work? At least a browser, email, and an office suite.

A school with no computers in 2010 is like a student without a pencil.

A donation of a computer meets only a small fraction of the need. You need some software to use: an operating system, a web browser, and an office suite is a good start. Typing tutors, art design software, multimedia, math and reading games are also in demand. Then enter the communication software like email services, blogs, and class management software. Unless you opt for a Free and Open Source software, it could cost about $2000 per workstation – easy. The good news that GNU/Linux operating system like Ubuntu offer these packages are available at no cost.

Before you say that Microsoft branded products like Windows, Exchange, Office, and Sharepoint are a requite for successful productive adulthood, what did you use in school? My answer: I used pencils.

Do you think you are up for the challenge of setting up some Ubuntu labs in your school district?

Say you have ten Ubuntu systems to donate. They are in top working condition. You install all the software the teachers and students could ever need. The principals buy-in to this plan. The teachers are on board. You decide to split the hardware between the two schools.

Great but it all takes resources….

The systems need somewhere to go, some power to use, a network to plug into, a place for students files, an internet connection, some way to print, backups, and some people to setup maintain the systems. It gets very complex, very quickly.

Who has the track record to deliver?

Partimus is a California Ubuntu LoCo Team and 501c(3) non-profit which has successfully deployed Linux on the desktop in 6 Bay-Area schools.

With everyday people like Partimus at work, Microsoft will lose a majority market share.

This is not news to the regular readers of whatwillweuse.com where we made this declaration in January 2010. Nor is this a surprise to the market share watchers at w3counter.com who now report 43.3% Internet Explorer market share. Its also worth noting that W3Schools reports a dismal 31.1% Microsoft browser market share. Large audience sites such as wikipedia.org report less than 50% IE users. This September, major market share counter statcounter.com reports 49.87% market share for Internet Explorer. The evidence is overwhelming that Microsoft has lost the browser war.

Those who follow exclusively Net Applications’ market share reports see the September 2010 market share at 59.65% Internet Explorer. This is discouraging news for Microsoft since the trend is on track IE decrease which will yield less than 50% for their June 2011 report.

What do you think – Comment please

Does more than half of the Internet-using world use Microsoft Internet Explorer?

Will Internet Explorer 9 regain, maintain, or lose Microsoft’s browser fan base?

To help answer this question this Ubucon has an all star cast.

Jorge O. Castro, External Project Developer Relations for Canonical, will be speaking about Low-Hanging Fruit of the juicy software variety. Jorge works with getting really hard bits to integrate with Ubuntu, recently and namely Google Voice with video support. He will show us how we can all help by packaging and bug fixing. Yummy.

Next will be the outstanding Amber Graner of Ubuntu User magazine. She will discuss how it is possible to contribute to Free software, even if you are not a developer. Amber knows because she has done it all without compiling a single code or hacking a single kernel. You go girl.

Then we will have some words from the Ubuntu Ohio LoCo Team who are experts in gorilla marketing of Free software. They mobilize volunteers to support recycling efforts like Free Geek Columbus and distribute Ubuntu to the libraries. These party-animals also make sure every single release is properly celebrated. If your dance card on October 10, 2010 does not include Maverick Meerkat then the Ohio LoCo team will tell you how to plan a release party in your neighborhood. Ubuntinis anyone?

Master-of-the-Universe and Kubuntu programmer Mackenzie Morgan will discuss the Ubuntu software development process. She will explain how she makes great Free software available . Microsoft sells software like it is 1984 and Mackenzie packages Free software like its 2014. Take a time machine with Mackenzie and she will show us how its done. Mackenzie is the future.

Last, but not least is David Mandala, lead of the ARM team at Canonical, who will be taking your questions concerning ARM on Ubuntu. When not giving talks at LinuxFests, David travels the globe working with ARM board builders and councils them on making their hardware compatible with Linux ever since Ubuntu 9.04. Microsoft didn’t even get into the ARM operating system business until last month – and that took some arm-twisting. Catch David on Saturday at 10 A.M. where he will talk more about the future of Ubuntu ARM support in the “FOSS in Other Worlds” track. With David’s help, Ubuntu will be first and best on a full Free software stack on ARM-based tablets as soon as this Christmas. Game over for the Windows desktop.

At the Ohio LinuxFest, at Ubucon, we will seal the fate: Microsoft will lose majority market share come June 30, 2011.

Freedom through Ubuntu is possible and real…