Microsoft, a mindshare marvel

It?s clear as day that Microsoft commands a high profile across our audience. But just how much may surprise you. According to?BT Trax, in the last seven days, Microsoft garnered over half of the vendor mindshare in five categories: authoring (64%), Linux (53%), operating systems (60%), security (58%), and supercomputing (97%). In contrast, other top mindshare companies like Cisco, IBM, and Apple dominated in just one or two categories.

Microsoft traditionally sees double digit mindshare percentages across technology categories you'd expect, such as operating systems and groupware. But it also gets considerable attention from a host of ancillary topics, like Linux and security, where the software behemoth is often at the center of the discussion.

BT Trax constantly analyzes our IT content to determine which stories are associated with a technology or company and then tallies the number of times those stories are read by ZDNet users. The result is a ratio of content consumed compared to the total information available in that segment. In this way, we can see at a glance which companies or technologies are high profile and which are low--a direct view into our audiences' preferences.