Linux server market sagging?

Here's some interesting market research. IDC says that Linux is losing market share to Windows, on x86 servers in the US.

What's more, it's a sudden change, with the Linux annual growth going from +53 percent in 2003, to -6 percent in 2006, (reported in eWeek) while Windows server figures continue to grow. That sounds pretty drastic, doesn’t it?

It may be that there's no need to panic. The fast growth rates were due to migration from Unix to Linux, according to IDC. That was a no-brainer, it happened fast, and the easy part of that migration is . And apparently that is pretty much all done now. There's only a few SCO and UnixWare holdouts, while everyone else has made the sensible move.

But there's an even bigger consideration. Linux today, points out that IDC is tracking newly-shipped systems, where the software is bundled with hardware, and most Linux isn't shipped that way. It's installed on existing - and probably recycled - hardware.

So, panic over? Well, I don't know.

Windows had about half the server operating system market in 2000, and that's gone up to about 70 percent, Margaret Lewis, director of commercial solutions for AMD told eWeek. She reckons Linux has around 20 percent share, Unix is less than 20 percent and Netware doesn't register. Now, I'm guessing that's subject to the same problems as the IDC figure -- coming from AMD, it's pretty much bound to be tied to hardware sales.

But I'd have thought it was pretty important for Linux to be on new hardware that goes out to users. The underlying message seems to be that on those new systems, Linux still doesn't compete with Windows, but only competes with lame old Unix.

Shouldn't that be cause for concern?