WSJ.com - Microsoft Windows Still Dominates Systems Shipments

WSJ.com - Microsoft Windows Still Dominates Systems Shipments " Microsoft Corp. continues to take a bigger share of the market for operating systems used on servers, despite a widely perceived threat from Linux software, according to a new research report from the market-research firm IDC.
The firm plans to report Wednesday that Microsoft's Windows accounted for 55% of new shipments of server operating systems in 2002, up from 50.5% in 2001. By contrast, paid versions of Linux accounted for 23.1% of new shipments, up from 22.4% over the same period. IDC predicts that both Windows and Linux will increase their shipment totals and market shares through 2007.
Linux is also available in free versions that don't show up in IDC's numbers. But Al Gillen, an IDC analyst, said that companies that use Linux are increasingly opting for paid versions that come with support and regular product fixes and updates. Two major suppliers of those paid versions, Red Hat Inc. and SuSE Linux AG, also should see big revenue jumps."