Linux Not Dead on NetBooks?

In a article published by ComputerWorld, it appears that the hew and cry of Microsoft might be a tad overzealous for Windows dominance on the NetBook market. At least according to ABI research. –

Nearly one-third of the 35 million netbooks on track to ship this year will come with some variant of the free, open-source operating system, ABI Research said. The exact split is 32% Linux versus 68% Windows, said Jeff Orr, an analyst at ABI, which works out to about 11 million Linux netbooks this year.

That number contradicts third-party market figures, trumpeted by Microsoft, that showed Linux shipping on as few as 4% of U.S. netbooks.

“Just because you live in the United States, don’t assume that everything is on Windows,” Orr said.

Orr said Ubuntu is a popular choice on netbooks, though he declined to confirm that with any hard statistics.

Tends to confirm my belief that each continent’s inhabitants tend to select those tools that fit not only their circumstances but are readily available to them in the local marketplace. Windows tends to dominate in the first world due to income and superior logistical support. Get to Bunga Bora and the reason Linux is there is because the tribes son just happen to bring the Suse disk and Dad has the laptop.

Is 1/3rd market share good for Linux? Sure. Fact it generate a massive user base. You talk 1/3rd market here in the US its 100m users. You say 1/3rd market in India, that is nearly the entire population of the US as a user base. I’ll take those odds any day folks!

More here.