In July of this year, Microsoft is terminating its support for the Windows Server 2003 product line. Early in 2015, over 14% of Dutch company offices with 50 or more employees stated that they were still using this platform. In view of developments within the various market segments there are some clear differences. Within the public sector and multinationals there is a relatively low presence of Windows Server 2003, namely 12 and 10% of the locations respectively. In addition, medium-sized businesses (companies with 50 to 250 employees) and national enterprises (250 to 2,500 employees) stick with this platform longer. Within these two segments 20% of company offices still use it. However, most companies now seem to be taking measures in response to the imminent termination of support. From January 2014 to January 2015, the number of locations using the platform fell by over 50%. This emerged from an analysis carried out by Computer Profile on the basis of over 1,500 interviews on the use of driver systems and related software.

1. Windows server 2003 penetration
development
In July of this year, Microsoft is terminating its support for the Windows Server 2003
product line. Early in 2015, over 14% of Dutch company offices with 50 or more
employees stated that they were still using this platform. In view of developments within
the various market segments there are some clear differences. Within the public sector
and multinationals there is a relatively low presence of Windows Server 2003, namely 12
and 10% of the locations respectively. In addition, medium-sized businesses (companies
with 50 to 250 employees) and national enterprises (250 to 2,500 employees) stick with
this platform longer. Within these two segments 20% of company offices still use it.
However, most companies now seem to be taking measures in response to the imminent
termination of support. From January 2014 to January 2015, the number of locations
using the platform fell by over 50%.
This emerged from an analysis carried out by Computer Profile on the basis of over 1,500
interviews on the use of driver systems and related software.

2. Windows Server 2008 is still the most popular server OS
September 2012 saw the appearance of the latest version of the Microsoft server
operating system, namely Windows Server 2012. This version succeeded Windows Server
2008. At the start of 2015, this latter version still had the highest penetration level,
namely 37%. Windows Server 2012 is now the second most popular driver system. Over
17% of the locations indicate that they use this platform. Early in 2014, only 5% of the
locations indicated that they were using Windows Server 2012, so use over the last
twelve months has more than trebled. With 14%, Windows Server 2003 is still the third
most popular driver system on servers.
The growing use of Windows Server 2012 means not only that the use of Server 2003 is
decreasing rapidly, but also that Windows 2000 Server, with a remnant of 0.4%, has
been replaced by a newer Microsoft version. The researchers have also considered other
platforms apart from the Microsoft server operating systems. The number of locations
which use OS/400 is decreasing very slowly and in recent years the figures have been
around 3 to 4%. The number of group locations where Linux runs on the server also
seems to be decreasing slowly and the figure in January 2015 was about 8% of business
locations.

3. Installed base
Computer Profile has gathered its information from end user organisations. The
researchers also considered the entire installed base and not just the systems which have
been purchased recently. If we consider all the server operating systems in use for
virtualised servers both host and guest OS, then Windows Server 2008 driver systems
still accounted for 59% of the total number of installations at the start of 2015. Windows
2012 has made great strides in recent years and is now in second place with 20%. 12
years after its introduction, Windows server 2003 still accounts for about 12% of the
total number of listed driver systems. Linux has remained fairly stable in recent years
and accounts for 9% of the total number of server installations. The other server
operating systems account for less than 1% of all listed servers at company offices with
50 or more employees. The installed base figures refer only to driver systems installed on
server systems at a company’s own location.

4. Market segments
For market segments we can see different proportions in the installed base. For example,
the proportion of Windows Server 2012 systems in the total number of systems is clearly
the highest in locations of multinationals. The proportion of Windows Server 2003
systems is the lowest in locations of companies with 250 to 2,500 employees in the
Netherlands (national enterprises segment). By contrast, the proportion of Linux in the
total is the highest within this segment.