IIS is more widespread within the Fortune 500 than Apache?! and by a serious margin.

July 19, 2000 3:50 AM

IIS is more widespread within the Fortune 500 than Apache?! and by a serious margin. Is there any surprise that this comes from a Windows magazine? And as someone that works for a Fortune 500 company, let me add, these are the companies that don't know what they're doing...and by a serious margin. Sounds like another win for Apache to me.
posted by jdiaz (6 comments total)

Isn't this roughly the same argument that's wheeled out when anyone mentions Linux. Commercial companies need someone to blame when their web site goes tits up because of the server, Apache is open source and therefore regarded as 'unsupported' which is why the men in suits don't like either it or Linux.
At least thats the reason I was given when I suggested that my department switched (never mind there are plenty of people here perfectly capable of maintaining and supporting it themselves). It's the 'if it costs a lot it must be better' mindset - annoying as hell.
posted by Markb at 4:41 AM on July 19, 2000

I used to be dimly aware that Netscape Enterprise server ran 70-80% of the biggest websites. That was a couple of years ago. I wonder what that number is now?
posted by Dean_Paxton at 5:38 AM on July 19, 2000

I have always thought that netcraft's stats were a little misleading. Sure, the company I work for uses IIS on our external webservers, but we use Linux, Netscape, and Windows based webserver software for a number of applications internally.
What a company uses for external applications is not always a clear indication of allegiance to a particular platform.
posted by internook at 5:44 AM on July 19, 2000

Hey, this just occurred to me. This is at best 500 companies. And IIS is still only 41% of that?? I still think the 10 million Apache sites says something.
posted by jdiaz at 10:09 AM on July 19, 2000

ApacheToday had a mini-rebuttal on ENT's article that pointed out the flaws in their methodology.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Microsoft-Centric Market Research

Apparently ApacheToday is working on a follow-up article that with actual phone contact to the Fortune 500 to find out what they're running. But I'm sure people will take issue with that as well :)
posted by kaefer at 11:09 AM on July 19, 2000

Personally, I'm not putting much faith in either Winfo's article or on the upcoming ApacheWeek article, because most sites are run on several platforms. I work for an ASP, providing computationally intensive image manipulation online. We run our appservers on Linux/Apache, but several of our clients serve other parts of their site from win32. That means those sites chalk up a point both for win32 and Apache. Multi-platform architecture is the norm in my experience; IT departments try to use the best tool for the job. Linux/Apache up front handling the http, and SQLServer or Oracle on the backside is a tried and true formula.

And Apache isn't the only server that runs on *n[i,u]x either. There are several applications better suited for certain tasks than Apache.

As for the phone interviews, well... I happen to know several sites that are running on Linux or FreeBSD, unbeknownst to the people upstairs.

Though, I must admit that Winfo lost a lot of credibility when the author admitted s/he didn'tk know what was driving any specific sites... I guess s/he doesn't get out into the real world much, that kind of info is standard industry gossip. And what, pray tell is BSD/OS? Is that a port of OS/2 to the BSD platform? ;) Or just a typo...
posted by katchomko at 5:17 PM on July 19, 2000