Linux breaks 1% on the desktop, Internet Explorer continues to slide

The MarketShare numbers are in for April 2009, and there's a little bit of good news for Linux. While there's still a long way to go before catching up to Mac, Linux has finally claimed more than a 1% share of client devices.
With some serious buzz behind Linux already this year like HP's stunning Ubuntu remix for netbooks and their decision to offer OpenSUSE on business notebooks, as well as the release of Jaunty Jackalope, will Linux make waves on the desktop in 2009?
Since March 2009, both Mac and Windows saw slight declines - a fraction of a point in both cases, but much needed wiggle room into which Linux can squeeze.
The report also marks Internet Explorer's continued decline, down almost another full point. Meanwhile, Firefox and Chrome keep moving up the chart. Firefox is now closing in on 23% share.
With some serious buzz behind Linux already this year like HP's stunning Ubuntu remix for netbooks and their decision to offer OpenSUSE on business notebooks, as well as the release of Jaunty Jackalope, will Linux make waves on the desktop in 2009?
Since March 2009, both Mac and Windows saw slight declines - a fraction of a point in both cases, but much needed wiggle room into which Linux can squeeze.
The report also marks Internet Explorer's continued decline, down almost another full point. Meanwhile, Firefox and Chrome keep moving up the chart. Firefox is now closing in on 23% share.
[ via @glynmoody]












Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsbill cant fart is ANGRY!May 1st 2009 2:35PM
Hoorah!
ToddMay 1st 2009 2:51PM
"...The number of PCs in use worldwide has surpassed 1 billion and there are one and a half billion internet users globally.
At the same time there are more than 4 billion mobile subscribers, indicating the vast growth potential for mobile internet, especially considering that 58 percent of the world's installed PCs are in markets that account for only 15 percent of the world's population, meaning that for a majority of the potential users the handset is their main internet terminal."
http://www.reportlinker.com/p099491/Mobile-Internet-2010.html
Symbian, iPhone, Android are all derivatives of Linux.
P.S. I will gloss over people in IT departments who intentionally block Linux from the Enterprise desktop in order to keep their job - even though doing so may be a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley
:)
mkoMay 1st 2009 3:03PM
iPhone OS is a deriative of Mac OS X which is based Mach Kernel and BSD (therefore Unix like)
Symbian OS is based on Psion's EPOC I'm not aware of any releation with Linux or other Unix-like systems.
Android on the other hand is indeed based on Linux.
Don't get me wrong I too think Linux is great.
Viewtiful Jason2May 1st 2009 4:10PM
With numbers like those, why does MS feel threatened? Is there really that much momentum for Apple?
BradMay 1st 2009 4:11PM
I also love LINUX - but after all these years, achieving a 1% market share is pretty lame, and not deserving of a standing ovation.
It's cool that there are literally hundreds of distros, and GNOME vs KDE vs Whatever. Unfortunately, this smorgasbord approach doesn't seem to attract a wide audience when you add it all up - even when in most cases, the price is $0 or close to it.
Nice software, not-so-great business model.
alex1jamMay 1st 2009 7:34PM
Linux is the best.
WarrenisMay 3rd 2009 3:25PM
i'm a little lost.
say for instance, i just bought this gorgeous asus, with 4gb memory, etc etc (dont feel like typing) 64 bit vista, then i got home and replaced it with 64 bit ubuntu. in my case, linux gets no credit correct?
my real question is actually, since it's free, how exactly do they factor in the 'market' part?