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?

Rupert's just said again what I've been hearing in various places:
Vista's awkwardness is going to drive people to Linux.

That's something I heard when Specavers moved to Linux. They'd been thinking about moving before, but there was always a barrier - the cost of retraining.

Vista is gratuitously different from Windows XP. So different that it will take as much retraining (Vistification?) to get a user started on Vista, as it would to get them shifted to Linux. On Rupert's experience, probably more.

Training costs are a wash, and any company thinking of a move from XP can make the judgement on the cost of software and support, and the availability of applications.

That's the theory at least - but let's not forget that home users now effectively cannot get Windows XP. They're pushed towards Vista Home Premium, and that means here's a generation who will go through the Vistification process at home on their own time, at their own expense.

My mother just bought a Dell - Vista was the only OS on offer (at least without her trying to find anything tricky through the business section of the site). She's moving from Windows 98, so we thought she might as well go straight to Vista.

With a horde of other people going the same way, Vistification will only work in favour of Linux for a year or two.

Becta's dealings with Microsoft got a slating on this site on Friday - but is it possible that our Government is illegally subsidising Microsoft?

Becta put out a release on Friday to say it had taken
Microsoft to the Office of Fair Trading. This sounded like a positive step for the open source community which has been campaigning for a long while to get Becta to stop pandering to Microsoft.

It rapidly became clear that referring Microsoft to the OFT is just a negotiating tactic. And the timing of the release might just have been designed to save it from a mauling at the OSA (Open Schools Alliance) conference.

In fact, Becta is beavering away trying to get a better rate on Microsoft's licence fees to schools, not looking at the alternatives. Its party line is that it shouldn't push one technology over another, but that, say the critics, just supports the status quo.

By spending so much time on negotiations with Microsoft, and working with suppliers who only deal with Microsoft, Becta is, effectively subsidising Microsoft's marketing.

And that's where Becta might find it comes unstuck. The European Union has a whole legal framework to deal with Illegal subsidies, originally created to stop European nations supporting their own national industries against competition within Europe.

It would be deeply ironic if the UK were taken to task for subsidising a foreign competitor - especially one that is already dominant in the market.