OS market gains

As it looks back on 2010, Stamford-based Gartner Inc. sees the global economic recovery directly impacting the worldwide operating system software market, which grew into a $30.4 billion industry last year.

“The long-pending demand for PC refreshment was unleashed as the economy stepped out from the economic turndown, which drove growth of client operating systems,” said Matthew Cheung, principal research analyst at Gartner, which researches technology and advises on related matters.

According to recently released Gartner study tracking the operating software market, as the global economy recovered, worldwide operating system revenue totaled $30.4 billion in 2010, a 7.8 percent increase from 2009.

Cheung said that, by and large, client operating systems outperformed server operating systems and grew 9.3 percent in 2010. The analyst company also found that the server operating system segment grew 5.7 percent.

“In the server operating system market, Linux server was the fastest-growing subsegment in 2010 as end users adopted more open-standard systems,” said Alan Dayley, managing vice president at Gartner.

Dayley said within the Unix operating system market, IBM”™s operating system AIX had high single-digit growth, but Unix generally experienced modest or negative growth in the year because of competition and some vendors retiring their proprietary Unix servers and moving users to more open systems.

Gatner found that Linux server and Mac iOS were the fastest-growing subsegments in the server and client operating system segments. Microsoft maintained its leading position in the overall desktop operating system market, with nearly 79 percent of the market share.

Dayley said among client operating system, Mac iOS was the fastest-growing subsegment in 2010 as the unit shipments of Mac desktop and laptop devices saw strong sales, although from a base that has seen a downturn. He said Windows was still the largest client operating system segment, with high-single-digit growth, for the most part driven by adoption of Windows 7 and the pending end of life of Windows XP.

Cheung said Microsoft held the largest market share of the worldwide operating system software segment, with 78.6 percent share in 2010. The far-off second and third positions were held by IBM and HP, with 7.5 percent and 3.7 percent share.

The Gartner study found a quick climb in 2010 for Oracle in the worldwide operating system market: from No. 8 in 2009 to No. 4 in 2010. The shift is attributed by Gartner to Oracle”™s acquisition Sun Microsystems’ Solaris business in April 2009.