Microsoft Still Cleaning Up With Windows

SAN FRANCISCO -- Whether from Linux open-source technology or virtualization, many have predicted the demise of Microsoft's(MSFT Quote) traditional software business. So far the company that built its house on Windows isn't caving in to soothsayers.

The latest figures from consulting firms indicate that although Linux sales are growing by number of servers shipped with the operating system, the software is losing ground to Microsoft's Windows.

Microsoft picked up 2 percentage points, bringing its market share to 67.1% of servers shipped during the second quarter, according to data from Gartner. Of 2.06 million servers shipped overall, nearly 1.4 million came preloaded with proprietary OS. That works out to an extra 77,650 Microsoft-based servers sold during the quarter, year over year.

Linux accounted for 22.8% of server shipments, down from 23.1% the year before. In spite of the lost ground in market share, strong sales of servers created a bigger pie for the slight growth of commercial Linux. ...