Linux desktops not taking off: IDC 16833

Roy Culley

The fact is that most of these whitebox vendors have no clue as to what will happen to their machines. Many users simply transfer the OEM licence from an older machine to a newer one and either scuttle the old one or convert it to Linux. Who does how much of what?

IDC knows how many Linux licenses have been shipped. There are also surveys which show the number of machines being used to browse the web that run "Linux" OR "Other" (since Linux browsers often use "generic" signatures. These numbers show an increase from about 3% or 30 million Linux users to nearly 14% (according to Microsoft's sworn testimony in open court) or about 140 million users world-wide that's an increase of over 100 million users in less than 2 years.

In Asia Linux is up to almost 30%, and in Brazil, it's up to 40%.

So sorry, I frequently use the Google "quick-reply" option. That does not provide the original content, but does provide a way to quickly reply to a short article if you are one of the first responders. When I started the post, I was the only responder, but I was pulled away before I finished the post so it came in second.