But Gillen said he didn't see Apple grabbing much market share from Microsoft customers looking at alternatives, in part because many are looking at lower-cost Linux. "Any Microsoft shop today that is looking for alternatives, it's pretty unlikely they would even consider an Apple solution unless it's a shop that already has a lot of Apple clients," Gillen said. "Apple clients are fewer and fewer throughout the industry, except for a few graphics-arts and desktop-publishing shops." In fact, Gillen painted a bleak outlook for Mac OS X Server, which doesn't even register on IDC's Unix market share figures. "Apple has moved into a market segment that is not a growing market," Gillen said. "The Unix server operating environment is declining at a fairly rapid pace year over year." Last year, Unix server operating shipments declined 23 percent, according to IDC. The market researcher expects a slight decline for the period through 2006. "It's a little late for Apple to get into this market, when Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun (Microsystems) and others are adding Linux server components to their lineups, because that's where the growth is," Gillen said. Mac OS X Server as an alternative to Linux could be a tough sell, particularly with the big Unix companies aligned against upstart Apple. Last year, Linux captured more than 25 percent of the server operating system market, according to IDC. Also, even with angry customers balking over licensing fees, Microsoft continues to gain market share in the server operating system market. Last year, Microsoft's share jumped to 49 percent from 42 percent in 2000, according to IDC. Following steep declines, Unix captured only 12 percent share. Apple also will discount its maintenance program based on the number of servers. The base prices apply to licences covering one to nine servers. For more servers, the pricing for 10 users is as follows: 10 to 99 servers, $449; 100 to 999 servers, $399; 1,000 or more servers, $349. For an unlimited number of users, pricing is: 10 to 99 servers, $899; 100 to 999, $799; 1,000 or more, $699.
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