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Study: Windows 2000 to defeat Linux handily

A comprehensive survey of over 2200 IT, education, and government decision makers reveals that Microsoft Windows 2000 will not only fend off the Linux/Open Unix threat, but will, in fact, have no real competition for the next few years at least. The survey indicates that Linux will experience massive percentage gains in marketshare over the next two years but that Windows will maintain or increase its lead regardless. The biggest growth for Windows will occur in the largest enterprises, while Linux is proving popular with smaller companies. "The open-source Unix movement is a true inflection point for the computing industry," says Peter Auditore, the president of BI/DW Research. "It does not, however, threaten Microsoft's dominance of the operating system market, at least for the next few years. Windows' huge installed base, the army of programmers developing for it, and the integration technologies that link this operating system and applications such as SQL Server and Microsoft Office are huge advantages that will require sustained attack for many years to overcome."

The survey plots the estimated marketshare for Windows 2000 and Linux in various markets such as data warehousing, database servers, eCommerce, file and print serving, Web servers, and the like. In each case, Windows 2000 is expected to dominate through at least 2002. Survey.com, which conducted the survey, indicates that Linux poses the biggest threat for established Unix variants, such as Sun Solaris, not Windows.

"\[Linux\] will make definite inroads into organizational and even enterprise-level computing over the next two years, and poses a serious threat to proprietary UNIX in particular," says Auditore

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