08.03.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Net Applications Finally Shows It’s Just a Joke: Mac ‘Market Share’ Halved Overnight!
Summary: Net Applications changes its mind about so-called ‘statistics’
WE HAVE been writing extensively about how Net Applications, contrary to Steve Ballmer, places Apple ahead of GNU/Linux in terms of market share. But Apple is virtually out of existence in the large majority of the world’s countries and it has been known for many years that GNU/Linux had gained a lot on the desktop, globally speaking.
For those who do not yet know about Net Applications admitting the deficiency of their US-oriented ‘results’ (and tweaking of them too), not to mention having Microsoft as a paying client and having staff with Microsoft history, read the following:
- Three New Articles Question Net Applications’ Integrity
- Net Applications: the Big Lie, Boosted by IDC|IDG et al
- Net Applications Has Former Microsoft Employee, Also a Microsoft Investor?
- Summary: Lies, Damn Lies and Net Applications (Fake ‘Statistics’)
From the Fortune/CNN Web site comes the following rant which shows just how ‘reliable’ Net Applications must be now that Apple sees a rise in performance, whereas Microsoft reports a sharp decline.
Net Applications: Apple just lost half its ‘market share’
The so-called market share reports issued every month by Net Applications have long been controversial — mostly because they didn’t actually measure market share (which business people typically express as the number of widgets they sell in a given period divided by the total number of widgets sold).
What Net Applications did instead was sample data from browsers visiting their clients’ websites and report what percentage came from machines running Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.
If almost 10% can become 5% overnight (based on some secret recipe), how reliable can those numbers be? Since Net Applications refuses to show its methods and its data, its results are as useless as those that arrive from Black Duck.
“Just having a lot of IP addresses means nothing; it is the distribution and the population of IPs that count…”It is funny how Net Applications always raves about number of IP addresses. Just having a lot of IP addresses means nothing; it is the distribution and the population of IPs that count (here is a great example of it). Net Applications keeps its data secret, obviously, so it usually means it has something to hide, something to be embarrassed of, like Diebold. It is biased in favour parts of the world where GNU/Linux adoption is already known to be very scarce, notably the United States.
Speaking of GNU/Linux adoption, not many people are even aware of the fact that, according to the following new report, “all of the members of the European Union (EU) are required to use open source Linux-based software exclusively, and this includes everything from operating systems to office applications.” Here is a broader quote:
When I thought about it, the list of open source software applications is actually quite long. Some of the major open source applications you may have heard about include MySQL, Apache Server, WordPress, Mozilla Firefox, Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, just to name a few.
I found it interesting to hear that all of the members of the European Union (EU) are required to use open source Linux-based software exclusively, and this includes everything from operating systems to office applications. There is also a move afoot here in this country to attempt to do a similar thing. A couple of the major programs are Government 2.0, that hopes to leverage Web 2.0 federated social networks in government, and Open Source for America, that advocates greater acceptance of open source software and efforts.
[...]
Open source Linux actually fostered the emergence of a couple of computer categories – the netbook, including the one laptop per child (OLPC) program where a good percentage are sold with Linux as the operating system.
What is the market share of GNU/Linux on the desktop? According to statistics from the Boycott Novell domain, it is approximately 40%. Honest. █
ᶃ Gemini Space
This post is also available in 
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
Chips B. Malroy said,
August 4, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Should we be happy about Net Apps correction of OS desktop market share data being off by at least 5% all this time? BTW, I believe its still far off the mark, as Linux only increase by 18%. Net Apps filtered in some data from China (where software piracy is abundant) and neglected mainland Europe and Eastern Europe where Linux is stronger. Net Apps with never be forthcoming with how it gets it data, from which types of sites, which can greatly skew data, perhaps in a way their sponsor would like. But its more than that, unless I missed something, Net Apps while changing it data collection for OS market share, did not change it for Browsers, did you notice that?
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
August 4th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Yes, it’s what immediately got my attention too.
Chips B. Malroy said,
August 4, 2009 at 3:25 pm
This data is important, in a way. Net Apps has been cited everywhere as the gospel in Desktop Market share, and they could do no wrong. And now it seems, that you Roy Schestowitz, have been right all along about their data being bogus. Without your articles, they would unlikely even make this change.
Unless of course the reason that Mac lost 5% which Windows gained , both overnight, is because of the “Laptop Hunters” commercials from Microsoft. HAHA. (While Mac increased it’s percentage of $1000 plus laptops sold in the USA from 88% to 91%)
No doubt, Net Apps would not like to correct the browser data, as that would should a whole lot more Firefox adoption as well.
The reason that this data is important, is because commercial coders, and companies look at this data before making a product, like games to sell in Linux for example. Now does anyone suppose that MS would use a site as a just the facts type of site, (think Net Apps, as example) to suppress true linux adoption percentages? Are false percentages being used on sites like these to suppress commercial programs and games being developed for Linux users? I think so, and for other reasons as well, like keeping OEM’s from pre-installing Linux on computers for sale.
Ballmer has said that Linux is the main competition, not Mac, in so many words, yet Net Apps gives us these figures, most likely still as bogus, as they were awhile ago before Net Apps 5% correction.
Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, not to be confused with anyone’s else’s, that includes that of this site, and therefore should not reflect on this site. I do not work for any company that has any interest in any of this.