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April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
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April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 6, 2006 23:23 UTC (Thu) by quintesse (guest, #14569) [Link]
I don't get it, we are just talking about the systems this registrar usesfor their DNS and stuff, don't we? I don't see how a switch from one OS to
another affects the server market. It is not as if I'm forced to use the
same OS on my server as the one that hosts my domain name.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 6, 2006 23:32 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]
A lot of websites are colocated at go-daddy versus at someones home or some special box. so any time they switch OS's they switch the number of servers change. I am guessing that they got a big payment from Microsoft to switch their virtual servers since (I think from some Forbes article) go-daddy's revenues were listed as break-even a couple of months ago.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 6, 2006 23:33 UTC (Thu) by nedrichards (subscriber, #23295) [Link]
My impression was that it wasn't even that, but in fact parked domains that would be moved to another host. Your own server would report the web server you were running on. Obviously that would make the stats even more useless.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 6, 2006 23:37 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
When Godaddy sets up a new domain name they setup a 'holding' website using that as a hostname automaticly.
So with the webserver survey they go by webserver these holding websites get counted.
What is more important is the 'active websites'.. these are sites that have unique content on their front page and thusly they are able to filter out sites that have generic content like these holding websites that godaddy uses.
However by counting the Active Websites you see that Apache has still lost substantial market of around 3% in just this month. Godaddy shouldn't affect that as much.
That is probably due more to the fact of the _much_ superior security track record of Windows 2003 IIS 6 stuff versus the Apache 2.x stuff. You have to admit that the "LAMP" track record is less then spectacular.
That and most developers prefer to use a platform and tools that they are familar with. They use Windows on the desktop, so Windows on the server is going to be the most comfortable and approachable for new people.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 1:13 UTC (Fri) by Mithrandir (subscriber, #3031) [Link]
However by counting the Active Websites you see that Apache has still lost substantial market of around 3% in just this month. Godaddy shouldn't affect that as much.2.32% is not really "around 3%". Also note that in terms of absolute numbers of active sites, apache grew by 208561 sites in April. Over the same period, MS picked up 764417. They both grew, MS just grew more.
That is probably due more to the fact of the _much_ superior security track record of Windows 2003 IIS 6 stuff versus the Apache 2.x stuff. You have to admit that the "LAMP" track record is less then spectacular.I have no idea what the track records of these are. Experience tells me however that the Windows stuff is unlikely to be more secure, especially if you factor in the entire stack (whatever you're using to be equivalent to LAMP, say Windows/IIS/SQL Server/ASP.NET). The number of worm-generated traffic for the platforms aught to be a decent indicator of this.
That and most developers prefer to use a platform and tools that they are familar with. They use Windows on the desktop, so Windows on the server is going to be the most comfortable and approachable for new people.Sure, if you haven't attended an academic institution, where UNIX is still dominant. In other words, if you're not really a professional.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 2:24 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Go look for yourself.
(looking at secunia.com)
Windows 2003 web server edition has a total of 82 advisories in the past 3 years or so. IIS 6 has TWO. ASP.NET has 7.
If you take a look at 'LAMP' as a software stack your looking at 72 vunerabilities coming from Linux. Just the 2.6 kernel and 17% of those are remote attacks. Then you have around 30 just for Apache 2.0.x, 14 for Mysql 4.x and 17 for PHP 4.3
Even if you add MS SQl and such to the mix you end up with 'LAMP' being trounced by Microsoft's ASP.NET stuff by a WIDE margin.
And not only that.. But you mentioned worms, right?
Guess what web servers has a LARGE number of worms and exploits circulating around this past 12 months or so.
I'll give you a hit: The software that is being hit by worms to death isn't made by Microsoft anymore.
Look for yourself.
http://www.google.com/search?q=PHP+worms
http://www.google.com/search?q=ASP.net+worms
Now on Linux's side you don't have to use that software. You could use Apache 1.3.x stuff. You could use a better language like Python, Ruby or Perl which have good security track records.
MySQL is easy to lock down and you can always use Postgresql or Firebird stuff. If you choose well Linux can provide a historically better platform... In my opinion as far as security is concerned Linux platform can provide a much better web platform.
HOWEVER you have LAMP being pimped as gods-gift-to-web developers by Oreilly and friends and from a marketting standpoint it is pure disaster. It's a fine system if you religiously keep it up to date, but most people don't. And PHP has a language is NOT superior to ASP.NET. At least not noticably. It's not easier to use, it's not faster (at least in a readily apparent way), and its definately less secure.
It's main advantage is that you have a lot of Free software related stuff for it, which is a substantial advantage but not that apparent.
Remember it's all about appearences. People choose one platform or another then run with it, often with minimal information about it and any of it's alternatives.
Windows on the desktop is plagued with security holes. But Windows 2003 is actually a very nice product.. at least so far. It's certaintly up to par with most Linux distros security-wise. From a marketting stand-point 2003 has a huge advantage based on the easy-to-see, but inaccurate method of comparing vunerability numbers.
(Win2003 web server had 82 advisories. Redhat AS has 264 advisories in the same time period)(these are not comparable since advisories from Microsoft are not the same sort of thing as advisories from Redhat, but most people aren't going to understand that)
It's a huge improvement over the pure hell that was Windows 2000 server and IIS 5. And note that even though IIS 5 was total shit it still managed to capture a substantial portion of the market.
Keep in mind that I still personally would prefer Linux by very much. I am familar with it and can lock it down quiet easily to be much more secure then 2003 is. Also keeping it up to date is much easier. I can't speak for development environments with open source langauges and such Linux versus propriatory tools with propriatory languages on Windows though since I am not a web developer.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 2:51 UTC (Fri) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]
a total of 82 advisories in the past 3 years or so.I thought people around here knew better than to think that advisory count comparisons actually mean anything.
Just the 2.6 kernel and 17% of those are remote attacks.
Please point us to those remote attacks. How many of those are DoS? How many are NFS, which people don't run on Internet web servers?
Then you have around 30 just for Apache 2.0.x,
That's why many of us are sticking with 1.3. Though I'm sure some of the drop is also attributable to lighttpd, which I suspect will become the preferred upgrade path from Apache 1.3 for those not running Apache 2 yet.
14 for Mysql 4.x
Who opens their database ports to the outside world?
and 17 for PHP 4.3
This is the real Achilles' heal.
It's a huge improvement over the pure hell that was Windows 2000 server and IIS 5.
Not to mention the hell of ASP/VBscript. :-)
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 3:22 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I thought people around here knew better than to think that advisory count comparisons actually mean anything.Ahh..
Well if you noticed I did say that they weren't accurate. Microsoft's discosure rates are going to be substantially less then the average Open source project's.
But to say that they don't matter is not entirely accurate. It depends on the context. When evaluating the relative security level of software it is not realy that usefull except to help research the vunerabilities themselves. However from a marketting standpoint they are very important because even though raw statistics are very misleading they are used by people who should know better, but don't.
According to Netcraft's "active sites" rating for the past 10 months, except for one, new websites are choosing Windows over Apache for whatever reason. They are both gaining numbers, but Microsoft is gaining them faster. These are small percentages compared to the overal market, but they add up over time.
Now I figure it's because even though Linux is better then Windows, it's not apparent enough to most people. Or it could be that web hosting companies just don't care. Or maybe that they think windows is actually better. I don't know.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 9:14 UTC (Fri) by hconnellan (subscriber, #231) [Link]
Let see (On the active stats):
July 2005: IIS +251012 Apache +632946 (Apache +)
Aug 2005: IIS +212034 Apache +882115 (Apache +)
Sep 2005: IIS +143854 Apche +322367 (Apache +)
Oct 2005: IIS +568215 Apache +752795 (Apache +)
Nov 2005: IIS +304730 Apache +93236 (IIS +)
Dec 2005: IIS +225855 Apache +162378 (IIS +)
Jan 2006: IIS +353139 Apache +202709 (IIS +)
Feb 2006: IIS +181880 Apache +18883 (IIS +)
Mar 2006: IIS +233104 Apache +869843 (Apache +)
Apr 2006: IIS +764417 Apache +208561 (IIS + )
Total for last 10 months: IIS +3238240 Apache +4145833 (Apache +)
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 9, 2006 12:10 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]
>> and 17 for PHP 4.3
> This is the real Achilles' heal.
Not if you are using <a href="http://www.turbogears.org">Python</a>
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 9, 2006 12:11 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]
Oops. I hit Post when I meant Preview. Oh, well.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 5:01 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link]
Ah, the typical apple-and-oranges comparison FUD.If you include outdated versions, like PHP 4 and MySQL 4 in the comparison, you should compare it with W2K Server and ASP, and not with W2003 and ASP.Net...
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 7:22 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Note that with PHP 4 I am only including vunerabilities after 2003.
Also it's with the PHP 4.3.x series, that was released in Dec 2002, that has the 17 vunarabilities.
PHP 5 wasn't released until 2004.
If you want that comparision.. Then PHP 5 has had 10 vunerabilities.
Compare that to... Python 2.3, for instance.. which has had 3. None of them paticularly serious. Or Perl 5.. Which had a total of 7 vunerabilities in 2003-2006. This is a programming language from 1994.
There is no apples to apples comparisions. But I did it as close as I though was proper.
No vunerabilites before jan 2003 were counted.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 7:48 UTC (Fri) by danieldk (subscriber, #27876) [Link]
Don't forget that many propietary software flaws that are not publicly reported, and even if they were there is no way to check that. Many opensource projects proactively publish security advisories for bugs that may *theoretically* be exploitable. Of course, there are some ugly security bugs every now and then. The question is what lines of defense are available in the case that there is some nasty bug. First of all, most GNU/Linux distributions have far better software management systems than Windows. Usually all packages on a production system are from distro package repositories. Updates are pulled in from one source. You do not have to get updates from different vendors that have different update mechanisms (I realise that this is not a real problem if a server just runs Windows + IIS). Besides that most modern Linux distributions have good protection mechanism like ExecShield and SELinux that help when a daemon is exploited.
The following article gives a good overview of the state of security in one of the popular Linux distributions:
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/017mar06/features/riskreport/
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 19:10 UTC (Fri) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]
So PHP sucks badly. What else is new?
linux 2.6 sec record
Posted Apr 7, 2006 7:46 UTC (Fri) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
See above for Apache 2.x in part of immaturity -- Solar Designer mentioned a rule of thumb that Linux kernels become useable in production somewhere around 2.x.20. So far it's rather working rule, my servers are running ALT Linux stock 2.4-ow kernels and feel good.
Versiomania is what hurts many, and dropping support for stabilized branches early is undermining the effort on stabilizing them.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 8:11 UTC (Fri) by jmansion (guest, #36515) [Link]
>Sure, if you haven't attended an academic institution,>where UNIX is still dominant. In other words, if you're
>not really a professional.
Hmm. Well, I'm nearly 42, I read Computer Science at Cambridge, and I've been working largely in the securities industry on Solaris and Windows since graduating.
Do I count as a professional?
ASP.NET and the accompanying Microsoft stack is easily the most effective single-vendor system, and lacks for little. Sure you can achieve a lot on other platforms, but having the integrated security AND distributed transactions AND SQLServer AND MSMQ AND C# and VB.NET AND the ease of P/Invoke AND access to legacy COM services - its very handy, even before you start on the page design and rendering stuff with ASP.NET. Does your IDE step through stored proc code?
Its not the only game in town, but don't knock it without providing some good reasons. Trying to achieve anything like Windows integrated security in a heterogeneous environment is enough to sap the will to live on its own. :-(
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 12:01 UTC (Fri) by leandro (guest, #1460) [Link]
Trying to achieve anything like Windows integrated security in a heterogeneous environment is enough to sap the will to live on its own.
Not a valid comparision. Better would be:
Trying to achieve anything like open systems integrated security in a MS Windows environment is enough to sap the will to live on its own.
Not to mention the even better:
Trying to achieve anything like free software integrated security in a MS Windows environment is enough to sap the will to live on its own.
Obviously there are lots of issues to sort out in any environment — for example, MySQL is a joke and will ever be, any DBA worth its salt will get you PostgreSQL, FireBird or MaxDB instead.
apache2 sec track -- well why use it?
Posted Apr 7, 2006 7:38 UTC (Fri) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
Well I maintain apache-1.3 in ALT Linux, and it's going to stay our default web server for quite a while.
I wonder both who let those pesky students into Apache 2.0 codebase to mess with things and why jump on the result before it's even remotely mature.
It was going to hurt, and it does. Apache Foundation's outrageous propaganda of ASL2.0 makes me feel like it's going to bite back too...
apache2 sec track -- well why use it?
Posted Apr 7, 2006 18:02 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link]
"those pesky students"??? What a non-sequitur.Apache 1.3 had "pesky students" as developers, e.g., Roy Fielding, then a graduate student...
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 7:45 UTC (Fri) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]
That and most developers prefer to use a platform and tools that they are familar with. They use Windows on the desktop, so Windows on the server is going to be the most comfortable and approachable for new people.This statement made me think how to remedy the situation. I though maybe I should write a script to simplify MSIE installation under Wine. Then I searched Google and found IEs4Linux, which does exactly that. I submitted fixes for the problems I encountered. I also announced IEs4Linux on Freshmeat. As this script matures, it will hopefully help Web developers move away from Windows, and the servers will follow.
exactly
Posted Apr 7, 2006 23:59 UTC (Fri) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link]
Linux is already the best platform for making and testing web pages. It's the only one, where all important rendering engines run: Trident (IE), Gecko (Seamonkey, Firefox, ...), KHTML (Safari, Konqueror) and Opera. And they are even extremely easy to install. Try to install the three most important IE versions (5.0, 5.5, 6.0) on a Windows machine... it'S just one call of ies4linux on Linux.
Reasons
Posted Apr 7, 2006 1:06 UTC (Fri) by freeio (subscriber, #9622) [Link]
We have a business which has a website hosted with hiwaay.com and they recently told us that at renewal time we would be switched to a new server, running windows. I replied and said that I preferred a linux solution, and they complied and the new server will be a linux system. However, the fact is that the default they are assigning is windows. That can skew things a lot.
The old server is a cobalt raq, which while reliable is now quite old. They are transitioning from those to new systems, and I would guess that the windows s/w came with their deal with dell/hp or whoever they buy from. I am guessing that their standard commerce setup is based on one single configuration, and that they would stick with it unless there is a real requirement not to do so. Their mom-and-pop businesses who need web services neither know nor care what is inside the server, as long is it reliably serves their content. So they go with the flow.
Our other nine web sites are all serverd off of the business DSL line, running apache/openbsd on Sun Ultra 5 boxes. For me that is a very reliable, minimal cost option with reasonable security. Netcraft reports that they are running apache and cannot tell which version or OS is in use. I would never put up a windows server - but then again I am not in the server business either.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 9:15 UTC (Fri) by Seegras (guest, #20463) [Link]
We're a Hoster, and Microsoft wanted us to pay EUR 4 per User we moved from Linux/FreeBSD to Windows. That would amount to more than 100'000 EUR for all our users.
We did the Math: Windows-Admins and Engineers: Zero; Unix-Admins and Engineers: 6. Windows-Servers already deployed: Zero, Unix-Server deployed: about 100; Unix-Workstations: 12; Windows-Workstations: 3. We came to the conclusion that a) one or two decent Windows-Admins would cost this 100'000 a year easily, but we would need about a dozen b) all other admins and engineers would leave the company very fast and c) we can save money by kicking out the remaining windows-workstations as well.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 11:00 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
That's absolutely bizzare.
Microsoft is paying you to move users on to Windows?!
Do you have some way to prove this maybe? It would be wonderfull to be able to point out how desperate Microsoft has become, if indeed they are paying people to use their software! (instead of just giving it away for no-cost..)
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 11:36 UTC (Fri) by laccata (guest, #3856) [Link]
"Microsoft wanted us to pay ..."
Sounds like the other way around?
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 19:19 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Oh, doh. Sorry read that wrong.
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 20:54 UTC (Fri) by lastman (guest, #34136) [Link]
I am understanding that MICROSOFT wanted to pay the hosting company 4 dollars per user switched over to windows. I suppose Microsoft's marketing machine can easily invest 100,000 euros in order to be able to make a statement about a hosting company switching its entire operation to Windows. Maybe Seegras can clarify...
April 2006 Web Server Survey (Netcraft)
Posted Apr 7, 2006 11:28 UTC (Fri) by ordonnateur (subscriber, #6652) [Link]
This dosn't mean much. There are web sites ad web sites. The big shift is accounted for by one hosting company changing the servers it uses for parked domains. Then there are all the small personal/small cmpany sites of just a few pages, maintained by people who run windows on the desktop and know nothing about servers, barely able to upload a page. All this mass market can be moved by one hosting company to whoever has the marketing funds to grease the path.What matters is something that gets lost in bare statistics, what people who know, know and think.
Musings:
Posted Apr 7, 2006 14:41 UTC (Fri) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link]
A couple of observations:
* Apache is still over 60% of this market
* The Netcraft surveys have been used to flog Microsoft/IIS for years
* Most of the shift has been with a few hosting providers, mostly in "parked domains"
It would be brash to draw any conclusions from these snippets. However one could reasonably surmise a theory.
If I were an executive at Microsoft ... particularly someone with a vested interest in IIS market share or just overall PR, then I'd be looking for some way to turn Netcraft's widely cited surveys to my advantage. I'd look for some way to "gain marketshare" in their next reports. It might even be worth a few million dollars (considering how widely its cited ... any gain is marketing money well spent).
In this thread we've seen one allegation that MS offered a hosting provider some sort of bounty (4 Euro/user) for converting users over. We all realize that a huge number of the 80 million domains that Netcraft currently includes in their survey are just "parked" domains or static little billboards or pamphlets. Offering some large hosting providers a few bucks for every one of those that will be counted as an IIS installation would be a relatively inexpensive marketing expense. (Costs can be capped arbitrarily because each of these offers can be a private arrangement and only offered to selected hosting providers).
Of course we can also guess that such an offer would include some non-disclosure terms (to avoid turning this into a PR fiasco).
The text of the survey points to Go Daddy moving 3.5 million domains to IIS --- 4.7% of 80 million is about 3.76 million. That means that roughly a quarter of one percent of the market share movement would be due to factors other than the deal with Go Daddy.
Deals with some other big providers like Hiwaay could involve a million or so domains and the effect of those would be dampened by the normal market trends (normal, actual sites that weren't affected by any "marketing bounties").
Since so many of the domains owned by these providers are just "parked" or are owned/operated by people who are maintaining trivial content (an online billboard, pamphlet or photo album) there is little cost or risk involved in moving them around. (Millions of these sites could go down for hours at a time and no one, least of all their owners, would notice). (Also keeping in mind that thousands of these trivial sites can be hosted on any single machine).
Of course I can't know that this is what's transpired. We've heard one, largely unsubstantiated, allegation in this thread. (I think nearly $4 per customer would be an awfully high value and I doubt that MS would have paid Go Daddy more than $1 each. But, as I said, MS could make different offers to each provider).
Of course the timing would be important --- I'd want to ensure that these changes where visible in one of the Netcraft surveys as "the biggest swings in history" so I'd be pretty hard-nosed with my "customers" (or "business partners") to co-ordinate the migrations all within one quarter (first quarter of the year).
So it's a plausible theory. If I were at MS and involved in making such an offer I'd concentrate on the dozen or so largest providers which were already MS customers for some of their business (no one who had a real vested interest in currying favor with "those Linux weenies" --- so I might avoid offering this to Rackspace Inc. and other companies like that). I might initially offer "$4 each in cash and discounts" then negotiate from there. (Of course I'd be pushing to minimize my cash outlay and maximize the amount that was accounted for by future licensing discounts).
JimD
Plus Astroturfing, of course
Posted Apr 7, 2006 17:50 UTC (Fri) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link]
Even if it may be poor form to follow one's own post, I have to add that, as I think about how I would approach such a strategy ... I have to say I'd budget a few hundred grand to pay for some professional astroturfing, too.
I'd spend a few weeks in secret meetings with my "astrocorps" devising our "talking points" ... and send them out to sites like LWN, Groklaw, Slashdot, etc, too ply their trade.
Vague comparisons of W2003's "track record" for security, vague rumblings about Apache 2.0's security and maturity, posturing as "developers" to espouse the importance of "integration" and the value of uniformity between desktop and server operating systems, et cetera, ad nauseum.
It's just another wrinkle to the (purely hypothetical) plan. Of course we, as a community, are self-critical and factious enough that there doesn't need to be much astroturfing ... just little nudges here and there.
JimD
No Bounty Allegation
Posted Apr 7, 2006 18:26 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link]
In this thread we've seen one allegation that MS offered a hosting provider some sort of bounty (4 Euro/user) for converting users over.
I misread that too, but as laccata points out Microsoft was offering to be paid 4 Euro per user rather than to pay.
No Bounty Allegation
Posted Apr 7, 2006 23:55 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link]
You were probably fooled by the sentence structure from a person who isn't a native English speaker.The rest of his post makes clear that he meant that MS wanted to pay $4/user. Essentially, the rest of his post said that even with a $100K earning from this offer, the end result would have been that they would lose money, since they would have to pay more than the $100K for Windows sys-admins.
No Bounty Allegation
Posted Apr 7, 2006 23:57 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link]
Sorry, I meant Euros of course. Which led me to the assumption of a non-native English speaker in the first place.
most probably German
Posted Apr 8, 2006 0:10 UTC (Sat) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link]
His name is "Seegras" which is a German word. And indeed: if you translate "Microsoft wollte uns 4 Euro pro Benutzer zahlen" sloppily into English it could read "Microsoft wanted us to pay EUR 4 per user" instead of "Microsoft wanted to pay us EUR 4 per user".
I see such errors often on mailing lists that use English language but are populated mostly by Germans.
No Bounty Allegation
Posted Apr 8, 2006 2:15 UTC (Sat) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link]
Whether or not his little hosting service with ~25,000 customers was offered a bounty or merely a price break on some licensing is completely irrelevant to my main hypothesis.
Microsoft could certainly have made such arrangements with Go Daddy (at least) and similar arrangements with several others. They could have done so and offered less than a dollar per "user" (domain hosted) ... and done so with a proviso that requires the domain to remain switched for the entirety of a fiscal quarter or even a year. All of that is plausible.
(As I said in my original post I would think they only be interested in those providers serving more than a million domains; to the little guys I can see that they'd only offer discounts and only on loss leaders that entail deeper future expenses).
Moreover it is PRECISELY the sort of thing I might do if I was very cash rich, getting a PR flogging on a quarterly basis due to sluggish "growth" or even declines in marketshare underscored by the Netcraft surveys and ESPECIALLY if I'd just announced that my premiere product (Vista) was going to be delayed for several months (again).
I don't know anything about how things are done at Microsoft. However, I was putting forth a theory of one strategy that I'd at least pitch to my bosses if I was there. The part of about astroturfing was an afterthought because it's not anything I'd suggest nor condone. However Microsoft does have a documented history of doing it and the term was invented to describe their rather ham-handed efforts.
In part I added the comment about astroturfing specifically because it was
something that came to mind as I reflected on some of the messages in this message thread.
JimD
Hard to know
Posted Apr 9, 2006 22:54 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]
Is there a "jmansion" who reads Computer Science at Cambridge and who is keen on VB.NET? Are there microsofties in drag on LWN? Is this the latest in astroturfing? They are interesting mysteries, unfortunately hard to solve given the anonymous nature of the site. I would say astroturfers are quite likely to appear as guests but not so much as subscribers; and there are legitimate security concerns expressed in drag's comments, who anyway appears to be playing devil's advocate most of the time.