When is a monopoly not a monopoly? Why when you’re Microsoft and your desktop monopoly can’t help make inroads in Web server sales. While Windows accounts for the vast majority of the desktop world, that trend has not been of much use in making Microsoft’s Web server software (IIS or Internet Information Services) the dominant server software hosting Web sites . According to Netcraft Apache has taken another 2 percent of Microsoft’s web server market share this year so far, which gives the Open Source Apache a tiny bit under 70 percent (69.86%) of the whole shebang. Microsoft were found guilty of monopoly practices for among other things using their Windows monopoly to win the browser war against Netscape by giving Internet Explorer away for free as the default browser in Windows. They are now in trouble in the EU for doing the same thing with Media Player, and at some stage in the future may be in trouble for embedding MSN and related services into Windows as well. None of that helps sell Web servers though, which is why every month seems to see a little more of Microsoft’s web server market share go to the Open Source Apache, which is usually running on some form of Unix/Linux/BSD.
