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New Fortune 1000 Corporate Web Server Survey by Port80 Software Challenges the Business Relevance of Popular Netcraft Survey

Conventional Wisdom Regarding Web Server Market Share Should Be Reexamined

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/ — A new survey of Fortune 1000 corporate
Web sites by Port80 Software, a developer of Microsoft Web server tools,
challenges the business relevance of the popular Web Server Survey published
by the Internet services company Netcraft.

Netcraft’s November 2003 Web Server Survey claims that the Apache Web
server "has a significant percentage gain" over the Microsoft Internet
Information Services (IIS) Web server and now controls over two-thirds of the
global Web server market. This recent survey builds on Netcraft’s long-term
view of Apache as holding the majority share of the Web server market.
In contrast, Port80 Software’s latest Fortune 1000 Web server survey
reveals Microsoft IIS’ ongoing dominance in the enterprise with a 53.8 percent
market share, calling into question the relevance of Netcraft’s data to
business decision makers. The Port80 Software Top 1000 Corporations’ Web
Servers Survey is available at:

http://www.port80software.com/surveys/top1000webservers

and Netcraft’s latest survey can be accessed at:

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/11/index.html.

"What do Netcraft’s findings prove about Web server market share? It all
depends on how you choose to define ‘market share,’" says Joe Lima, COO of
Port80 Software. "Netcraft attempts to review every detectable site on the
Internet to generate their Web server statistics, and this gives their survey
a natural bias in favor of Web servers that host relatively low-traffic or
even parked domains. The core issue is that hostnames aren’t necessarily the
best proxy for server market share — especially from a business perspective.
Personal sites, inactive domains, and bulk hosting providers are given equal
weight to sites like eBay, Dell.com and CocaCola.com in Netcraft’s
methodology."

The key problem with interpreting Netcraft’s Web server survey as a
reliable indication of Web server market share is centered on the nature of
their sample: Netcraft’s survey results are based on Web sites (or more
precisely, hostnames) rather than actual Web servers. In November 2003,
Netcraft reports on 44.9 million sites "[collected and collated] from as many
hostnames as can be found providing an HTTP service." This focus on sampling
as many sites as possible introduces a systematic overrepresentation of
servers that are used to host high numbers of low-traffic sites and parked
domains (hostnames pointed to a physical server but not actively used as Web
sites). As an extreme example of this sampling bias, the single largest gain
for Apache and loss for IIS in the November Netcraft survey came from the
migration of Register.com, a domain parking service that accounts for over 1.4
million Web server responses alone.

Netcraft attempts to counterbalance their sampling bias, but these
qualifications are not highlighted by Netcraft or most media reports on their
survey. First, Netcraft does use a logarithmic formula to lessen the effect
of parked domains in their sample. As might be expected, the November swing
in server market share is much less dramatic when using these revised numbers:
Apache’s gain falls from 2.80 to 1.25 percent while IIS’s loss is trimmed from
2.44 to 1.06 percent. (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/11/03/november_2003_web_server_survey.
html).

Also, Netcraft’s survey methodology acknowledges that their method of
reducing the number of parked domains leaves in place a sampling bias in favor
of "the cheap or free bulk hosters" (http://www.netcraft.com/survey/index-
200007.html).

Interestingly, Netcraft does possess a means to estimate
numbers of physical servers at a given ISP as opposed to hostnames, but they
do not apply this technique to the Web server survey released to the public
(http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/04/14/netcraft_hosting_provider_server
_count_available.html). Finally, Netcraft also conducts an SSL Web site
survey, which might be expected to provide market share data more relevant to
e-business decision makers, but they do not generally highlight the results of
that survey or provide them for free
(http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/04/09/netcraft_ssl_survey.html). The
last publicly-available, free results from the Netcraft SSL survey are from
January 2001
(http://www.netcraft.com/surveys/analysis/https/2001/Jan/CMatch/dv_all.html).
These results had IIS in the lead with 47.4 percent to Apache’s 28.1 percent
in a sample of 121,542 secure sites.

Unfortunately, these qualifications and other data supporting alternate
conclusions are not a focus for Netcraft and are not the metrics that make
headlines or receive the technology community’s attention. Netcraft’s survey
may be an accurate representation of "Web server software usage on Internet
connected computers," as their methodology states, but such statistics are not
synonymous with Web server market share. Ultimately, Netcraft’s conclusions
are of questionable relevance to business decision makers concerned with which
Web server technology to deploy for e-commerce or Web-based applications.

On the other hand, Port80 Software’s Web server survey focuses exclusively
on the corporate Web sites of Fortune 1000 companies. As opposed to asking
which Web server software is most common across the whole of the Internet, the
Port80 survey attempts to determine the Web server of choice among large
corporations with high-volume sites and demanding business requirements. With
this more business-focused approach, Port80’s monthly surveys represent a
clearer picture of the Web site technologies deployed by large businesses
today. In Port80’s November 2003 Fortune 1000 sample, Microsoft IIS claims a
more impressive 53.8 percent market share, including such heavily trafficked
industry leaders as BankOne, Walt Disney, and the Gap. Port80’s survey also
reports that many Fortune 1000 companies running IIS, including Intel, Martin
Marietta, and Goody’s Online, are swiftly upgrading from Windows NT to Windows
2000 and Windows Server 2003, reflecting a long-term commitment to the
Microsoft platform.

While Netcraft’s survey of hostnames is touted and accepted in the
industry press as representative of the actual Web server market, one should
be cautious of using Netcraft data to make claims of this kind. Port80
Software’s Top 1000 Corporations’ Web Servers Survey demonstrates that
Apache’s market share is likely much smaller in dedicated hosting and
corporate environments and confirms what most business already know: Microsoft
IIS is the Web server of choice for the world’s largest companies.

An article covering the Netcraft and Port80 Software Web server surveys in
more detail is online at
http://www.port80software.com/surveys/top1000webservers/relevance.

About Port80 Software

Port80 Software, Inc. is an innovative developer of software products for
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) focused Web site administrators,
developers and owners. Port80 products enhance IIS functionality, security,
performance, and user experience, augmenting IIS with on-par or better
features than those provided by the Apache server. Port80 also develops the
w3compiler desktop tool for next generation markup and code optimization.
Port80 Software is a Microsoft Certified Partner located in San Diego, CA.
Additional information about the company is available on the Internet at
http://www.port80software.com.

The names Port80 Software, PageXchanger, ServerMask, CustomError, httpZip,
ZipEnable, CacheRight, URLSpellCheck, and w3compiler, as well as their
respective logos and Web sites, are trademarked by Port80 Software, Inc. All
other company names and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of
their respective companies.

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