Microsoft ousting Unix on web servers

It's not a monopoly yet but it's well on its way...

Microsoft's share of the internet server market has risen nearly five per cent with two major domain registration companies adopting its platform. The open source Apache web hosting system, based on Linux, remains the market leader with 53.76 per cent market share, according to a monthly survey by Netcraft, which covers 38 million internet servers. But Microsoft's market share has risen by 4.89 per cent to 34.02 per cent, adding another two million computers. The change is largely due to two large domain registration companies, Register.com and Network Solutions, switching part of their systems to Microsoft's platform. Walt Meffert, CTO of Register.com, confirmed the company has moved most of its URL forwarding and "future site" services to Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) from Linux and Apache. He said: "We will be working with partners that use both Microsoft and Java-based systems to offer applications, and we realised that we didn't have any experience of using Microsoft in-house. So we shifted these systems to Microsoft's ISS, because it was simple to do." Register.com's rival, Network Solutions, switched tens of thousands of sites from iPlanet to Microsoft in March, following the announcement of a partnership between Microsoft and Network Solutions partner VeriSign to deliver applications under Microsoft's .Net web services initiative. Thousands were defaced shortly afterwards, according to US reports - highlighting the widely publicised security problems that beset Microsoft's IIS internet server. Sun's iPlanet software saw its position worsen, as its market share fell to 2.33 per cent.