Is Unix Dead? I Think I Hear It Laughing...

This was interesting to me. In Is Unix Dead? I Think I Hear It Laughing...(Information Week), they talk about the state of Unix and its potential future:

Fewer Unix systems are being shipped, but they're commanding a higher premium than ever. Unix still represents a $2 billion market, the largest operating-system market by far. Despite Windows Server recent gains, it still represents about $1.6 billion, when you're looking at operating system-only revenues. And Linux in terms of revenues represents one-tenth of what the good, gray Unixes combined represent. Granted the future belongs to Linux, but as a $2 billion market, is Unix dead?

The part which interested - and reassured - me was that the server market of MS Windows, the part which handles web services, mail services, etc, was only pulling in about US$1.6 billion dollars. That's not bad, considering, but it's still only a minority player on a server market where even Unix is killing it. In fact, taking just those two meta-brands ('Unix' encompassing all the vendors of compatible Unix OSes), we have windows at a paltry 44% of their combined market. 56% is more clear a victory than the current sitting US President had, by comparison.

Considering, too, that Linux is the current darling of hobbyists and suits alike, the numbers get more foggy. Unix and Windows licenses are a great way to count revenue and figure the size of the installed user base. Linux, being a product which can, ultimately, be zero-cost for installation even in massive data centres, may be a bit more difficult to count. The installed base could dwarf that of Windows and Unix combined, potentially by a massive factor.

What we know is that Linux vendors and supporters like RedHat are doing well enough, thank you very much. What tickles us the most, though, is the thought of the 800-lb gorilla Oracle having to pander to the second-class citizens in Unix OS development again. After a few years of being on the wrong end of one or more of their broad decisions, it's good to see what went around coming around again.