Having seen Linux slowly eat away at its server market, Microsoft has struck back by attempting to show why Windows still matters to businesses.

The company has published figures from IDC Research showing that on a unit basis, Windows Server is the most popular new platform for customers migrating from legacy Unix systems.

As a business person looking to make your next IT spend this "statistic" might convince you to run with the crowd, or at least pause a bit before plunking down your money for a different server operating system.

But forget this hype from Microsoft or any other software provider. As in everything else, let your business needs decide what is best for you, for the history of software development is a game of leapfrog.

Developments pioneered by one company are often closely matched by another, sooner or later. Rather than doing expensive changeovers from one to another anytime the leapfrog occurs, stick with your game.

Servers are the business end of connecting networks, providing gateways for multiple users to the Internet, hosting data and programs. They also provide the backbone of the Internet, for example hosting Web pages.

Like your regular desktop computer, servers need operating systems to run. Microsoft's Windows server software is one such system, Unix and Linux are others. Linux is a Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of hundreds of developers around the world. Linux was developed under what is called a "General Public Licence", which means the software is free for anybody to use and modify. Linux distributions these days go by a variety of names, including Red Hat, Suse and Mandrake. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Novell and Sun Microsystems all offer Linux variations.

Linux is highly popular among businesses and the IT department because of its open source licence, meaning it generally costs less to acquire and its code is known, making it easily adaptable for your type of operation. OK, IT guys and Microsoft sellers, before you fire off a flaming e-mail to me, I know there are a lot of cost issues that are involved here, but at the base those are the driving forces behind the Linux.

One area for which Linux gained traction with Unix customers in the market is custom application workloads, Microsoft admits. At one time Linux was eating away at the market for Windows and for Unix. Now Microsoft now claims the tide is turning away from Linux.

About 28 percent of large firms are using Linux on desktops or workstations. IDC also found that one-third of business customers that had a Microsoft operating system installed also had Linux installed somewhere in their company.

"IDC continues to see end users utilizing a mix of operating systems in their infrastructures," said Jean S. Bozman, vice president of worldwide server research at IDC. "Each platform offers its own advantages in terms of workloads and customer preferences, and there is substantial overlap in terms of ISV applications that run on many of these server platforms."

Linux has been eating up the Unix market . Now the forecaster is saying the Unix market is not defaulting to Linux. The new IDC study claims that about 45 per cent of customers migrating from legacy Unix systems are choosing Windows Server platforms, compared with 37 per cent for Linux and 16 per cent for other Unix variants.

As you can see the server market is adaptable, and doesn't jump on bandwagons.

The turn in the tide is due to Microsoft's inclusion of a new module for running Unix-based applications in its Windows Server 2003 R2 release. This should allow buyers to seamlessly move their custom-built Unix applications over to Windows without having the headache of doing major tweaks, Microsoft claims.

Microsoft is a bit on the backfoot these days. It has been under attack in the European Union for its reluctance to unlink its other software (such as Explorer) from its operating system. It has seen upstarts like Google start to move into some of its markets. The whole open source movement is basically a reaction to the Microsoft hedgemony.

For ordinary desktop users installing and using Linux poses a challenge, as downloading the software from the Internet means the documentation is technical and there is no support to help you out when things go wrong.

Go to www.linux.org to read up Linux and get some understand of the system. Linux.org also has some good step-by-step lessons on how to use and install the system.

@EDITRULE:

Last week Google gave me a pass to test its online Web page creator publishing program. I can report that it will be a big help to those who want to escape the fuss of learning HTML, the basic language of the Internet. You do not need any Web creation software, which is a plus for those who do not want to shell out for FrontPage and the like.

The software lets you create web pages in your browser and publish them for free on a Google server with an address like: http://ahmedelamin.googlepages.com.

The online software is in test mode, available to a few Gmail account holders. If you're one go to http://pages.google.com and sign up.

@EDITRULE:

Contact Ahmed at elaminahmedyahoo.com. Go to www.SecureBermuda.com for security updates.