I just noticed this tasty tidbit from China:
“Windows and Unix command market shares of 41.8 percent and 53.9 percent, respectively.”
So, with a billion future users of PCs in China, that other OS is starting from 42% and GNU/Linux is starting from 2.5% with three times the growth rate… Doom for that other OS. We know GNU/Linux can take on most UNIX loads and it is less expensive. That leaves that other OS as just another OS, not a monopoly. HeHeHe. All the while, folks think GNU/Linux is a marginal/niche/tiny OS.
| Year | GNU/Linux | TOS |
| 2007 | 2.5 | 31 |
| 2008 | 3.3 | 34 |
| 2009 | 4.4 | 37 |
| 2010 | 5.9 | 40 |
| 2011 | 7.9 | 44 |
| 2012 | 10.3 | 48 |
| 2013 | 13.4 | 53 |
| 2014 | 17.4 | 58 |
| 2015 | 23.5 | 63 |
| 2016 | 31.5 | 69 |
That assumes a constant growth rate and UNIX disappears. I would bet that once GNU/Linux gets to 10% or so it will grow faster and overtake that other OS. TIme will tell. It is all good news.
Lest the trolls find something to celebrate in this, these figures are growth in sales… Think of the numbers of free copies of GNU/Linux that could propagate in China.
17485
12769
206
3
2
23933 
11870 
11722 
4636 
4268 
1642 
198 
14 
2 
0 
0 
0 
“-the platform remains in a “weak position”, Wang said.”
“In China, the adopters of Linux are mainly the government, education and the telecommunications sectors.”
Government as in.. communist as in.. being FORCED to install linux. WOW WHAT A NICE WIN @@@
Nobody uses linux on the desktop in china. And the sad part is the piracy levels are around 90% for windows. This is extremely bad news for Linux. They want windows and are willing to steal it even if linux is available for free…
Time to rejoice?
Windows has a 41% share and this guy claims no one uses GNU/Linux. What are the other 59% using? Twit!
China has as many surfers as the USA but far fewer PCs. Many use Internet cafes that run GNU/Linux. In China the government made it illegal to ship naked PCs so the factories started to crank out boxes with GNU/Linux. China has several home-grown distros. China has in-house chip development. They are vertically integrated and do not need M$ at all. They are also where the growth is.
The government of China is nominally Communist but they know productivity is the bread on which they place their butter. Entrepreneurs are doing well everywhere in China with phenomenal growth. Their tech sector may just ride out the current down-turn selling internally. China is a powerhouse. Get used to it. Calling them names will not change that.
I rejoice that there are countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China where FLOSS helps them break out of agricultural economies and joint the 21st century. They are accomplishing what western nations did in hundreds of years in one hundred years and they are rightfully proud. The old political animosities are nearly irrelevant to the younger generation. They just want to work hard and to make a good living. FLOSS helps. M$ is just a parasite they should avoid.
No, Robert, you appear to be the twit. You don’t know much about China because you haven’t been there. You can only know what you read from press releases or half baked news articles.
Let’s take a closer look at your reference. First off, it’s a news article that sites a research study. In this case, a study done by a company called CCID consulting. Look again, these percentages are for SERVERS, not home desktop PCs. The author of the study, Mr. Wang, should have clarified this better. He can be excused for that perhaps because English is not his native language, but you have no excuse for not understanding the full context.
Read closer:
Linux is popular as a SERVER OPERATING SYSTEM because of its “relatively stable” performance and cost-effectiveness, Wang said, noting that the use of DESKTOP LINIX though is RARE.
Having been to many net bars around China, I can tell you that the customers are NOT using Linux. In fact, not one single machine I sat in front of was using Linux. Why? Software! Users want to install and play popular video games, work on their school papers using Microsoft Word, and chatting with the latest version of QQ. The Linux version of QQ? Like most Linux ports, it is severely lacking in features. Thus people don’t use it. I frequently correct English resumes and check over school work for students. Do you know how many are sending me papers written with Open Office or AbiWord? NONE.
Any PC sold with Linux installed is soon overwritten with a version of Windows. You do not have the facts about what happens in China, period. You live in your own little world where the facts are whatever you choose to read, and you even manage to distort that. That would be OK if you didn’t then publish a blog where people who might have a hard time trying to decide what is fact and what is opinion can read it.
http://www.linux.com/feature/122473
“Although China’s Linux market as a whole doubled from 2003 to 2006 to $20 million per year, sales of Linux desktop software grew more slowly. In fact, the market share of Linux desktop software in China dropped from 16% to 12% in the same period. But according to CCID Consulting, sales of Linux desktop software increased 25.1% in the third quarter of this year, catching up with the quick growth of China’s Linux industry as a whole. Several new developments have added fuel to the growth.”
Whatever you want to say about GNU/Linux in China, it is more popular there than in many parts of the world and growing fast. China is working towards being self-sufficient in IT and GNU/Linux fits very well.
What is your point?