Actually Microsoft’s share of the market is in the billions of co…
Actually Microsoft’s share of the market is in the billions of computers. How they got there is neither here nor there as far as security goes except they left it open and prone to attack because they wanted a mass OS that mom and pops could use.
Next a few percentage points of any market with billions installed is a more than a couple million. When Fedora 6 was released there were over 1 million downloads in a week. Canonical estimates that around 10 million people use Ubuntu day in and day out. With all the other successful distros you can easily extrapolate out to 30 to 50 million installs. That’s not even accounting for those installs on secondary machines that didn’t become part of the download count.
Apple, at one point said there were nearly 20 million OS X users and far less OS9 users. Combined, you are talking about close to a hundred million users of *nix based system.
Denying the existence of this OS has no basis in reality. Linux is here, free to use, and it is solid, secure, and very user friendly. OS X is here. That can’t be denied either. Many will need to get used to it. Alternatives to Microsoft’s offerings are growing and are doing so because they are competing feature for feature and are more secure, less invasive into the privacy of our every day lives.
Linux software is gaining parity with Windows software in terms of features and ease of use. It’s happening for a reason. It isn’t like it will ever be stopped and most likely never slowed. Linux when it picks up it’s pace will wow and overwhelm many that have seen it in action for the first time.
And, if an OS isn’t secure and manageable due to the number of installs when every install should be as secure as every other install it’s not worth using. The OS should be secure and manageable even if there’s a potential for millions of hackers writing malware, prodding the nooks and crannies of it. Think again. It’s nuts to blame use as the marketing factor for more malware. If one is secure then they all should be secure and if it was written correctly it would be secure so we’d all be secure.