Is demand for Linux slipping?

In this week's issue of eWEEK.com, I came across an interesting piece entitled Server OS Numbers at Issue which should get the attention of many Linux aficionados.  It opens like this:

During the past few fiscal quarters, Margaret Lewis has seen an interesting trend in the server space: Windows is garnering a greater share of the market, while growth in Linux systems appears to be slowing.

Lewis, director of commercial solutions at chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, said that in 2000, Windows constituted about half the server operating system market, followed by Unix and NetWare at about 17 percent each and Linux at about 10 percent. Today, Windows owns about 70 percent and Linux about 20 percent, with Unix below 10 percent and NetWare barely registering.

Hmmm..., that sounds about right to me...  Now, I have long maintained that while Desktop Linux still has a long way to go to be ready for the end-user market, that Linux continues to grow as a major competitor in the machine-room.  Well, not so fast ...

According to Lewis,

Over the past six quarters, [Linux on x86 has] started to falter and reverse its positive course relative to Windows Server and the market as a whole.  The annual rate of Linux growth in the x86 server space fell to negative 4 percent in calendar year 2006, while Windows Server growth outpaced the total growth rate in that market by more than 4 percent in 2006, IDC's figures indicate.

Can this be true?  Read on ...

While the numbers may have cheered Microsoft executives, they drew sharp criticism from Linux supporters, who said Linux is routinely undercounted in such surveys.

Amanda McPherson, marketing director for The Linux Foundation, in San Francisco, said it is impossible to count all the Linux servers in the market today.  She also said ...

"Since Linux is considered the better platform for virtualization, this impacts its numbers even more," McPherson said. "I don't think customers are complaining that they are getting more out of the investments they have already made."

I am sorry folks but I wouldn't find The Linux Foundation to be an any more reliable source regarding Linux than I would Bill Gates when talking the market penetration of Windows.  I do know VMware administrators though who tell me that a VMware server tends to support twice as many Windows Server virtual machines as it does Linux Server virtual machines, thanks to Windows' superior memory management characteristics.

So, what's in your machine-room?