Microsoft gains on Apache in web server war

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Microsoft is eating into Apache's web server market share, edging closer to a more dominant position in the net landscape very soon, according to new figures from net monitoring specialist Netcraft.

More than 100 million websites were studied to see which server-type was favourite among users, showing that the Redmond giant's Windows offering had added another 2.6 million sites to its ranks, boosting its share of the market by 1.4 per cent to reach 34.2 per cent.

Apache, however, lost 991,000 hostnames, according to Netcraft, seeing its crown slip by 1.7 per cent to leave it with less than 50 per cent (48.4 per cent) market share.

The losses mean that Microsoft has successfully closed what was a 50 per cent gap back in November 2005 to a more addressable figure of 16.7 per cent. In terms of actual active sites, Apache is casting a mere 12.2 per cent shadow over Microsoft.

"Microsoft's recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache's leadership position," said Netcraft in a statement.

"...It's worth noting that Apache has lost market share to another open source server, lighttpd (1.2 per cent of all sites), and Google (4.4 per cent) as well as Windows. But if Microsoft continues to gain share at its current pace, it could close the gap on Apache sometime in 2008."

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