Where can I find the following data:  Operating Systems' share of (A)
the business sectors and (B), the home sectors, broken down by year
and month, and extending as far back as computers were used in
business.

For example, I want to know that of 1000 people polled in 1989, 90%
had Win 95 on their desktops at work and the other 10% of the pie was
shared by Apple and maybe SGI or Unix/VAX.  Then, I want to observe,
in chart form (when I input the required data), how the percentages
changed from the sixties and the UNIVAC, Darpa project until today,
when the business sector is moving towards different O/S alternatives
(Linux, HTML/Java based).  I must have the same data for home users as
well (Atari/C64 to Mac to Windows to Playstation/Java/PDA computers).

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Clarification of Question by hamstrung-ga on 12 Aug 2002 11:01 PDT

Way too open?  Hell, I couldn't have made it clearer.

Which is why I think you answered it perfectly!  Thanks!  All I needed
was the place to locate such data and the people who gather it.  I'm
closing the question, but please do respond if you have any further
thoughts.  If anyone _has_ the data, naturally it's worth more than
$20.

You were right about IDC,
http://www.idc.com/en_US/commerce/idcStore.jhtml, but the prices for
their reports are a bit higher than I had planned (4,500 for an 80
page report?), but I'm going to watch for older copies of the
magazines you mentioned and I'll slowly compile the data I need.

My aim is to gather a comprehensive timeline of the 20th century, in
electronic format, so I can lay new data over it and produce new
charts that reflect changes in PC use (like here), but also political
changes, "This Year in History" type stuff, etc.

I plan to examine this information for stock market indicators,
primarily to understand how abstract changes can be observed in the
movement of the DJIA.


Thanks again.

Your question is way too open.  Let me explain how to obtain the data,
perhaps you will realize it is worth much more than US$20.

Get ahold of PC Magazine on CD-ROM.  Your local library might have a
copy of it.  Scan for Operating System marketshare, they used to have
a "news" section in which this kind of information appeared on a
regular basis.  Look also for the special numbers on Operating
Systems: they used to run a special "Window X.Y" issue, which several
articles on the First Looks section which used to contain this kind of
information.  They had also some Unix and MacOS issues (pre 1994,
IIRC).  (FYI: I don't mean to imply that PC Magazine doesn't do this
anymore, it's just that I stopped reading it some four or five years
ago, and the last time I looked at the magazine the format had
changed, the content had changed, and even the size of the magazine
had changed -- from 300+ pages for a "normal" issue to less than 100)

Now do the same for PC World, Byte, SysAdmin (I don't think this one
runs so far back in time -- it might have changed the name), Unix
Wolrd, Mac World, and other magazines like that of that era.

If this sounds daunting, it's because it is.  If you are willing to
pay for this data, IDG might have it.