I will give this a shot. The number of companies using Unix in Silicon
Valley with 20 or more uxix computers is approximately 91. The firs
place I went to was http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/special_packages/silicon_valley_150/3067391.htm
as this gives a listing of 150 of the largest corporations that do
business in the valley. After that, I went to
http://www.leb.net/hzo/ioscount/data/r.9904.txt to get a listing of
Opersating system usage circa 1999 on the net. Stats have not changed
that much to 2002. (Linux now has 27% of the Server Market vs 28.5 +-
2.8 as shown bu the 99 Ripe.edu list.) Going from there, the entire
unix percentage is 62.9. Multiply the 150 largest comapnies by that
figure and the count comes to 94. I think this is valid because 20
unix boxes (or 20 boxes of Windows for that matter) indicates a fairly
sizeable company and the 150 in the list are more than just that.
Also, because systems are networked and connected to the net, this
figure seems to fit but one cannot be completely certain about this.
Also, Silicon Valley is not the rest of the US regarding operating
system usage. They tend to be cutting edge, (Linux, BSDUnixt etc.)
obviously, so this count may be low. Good question to ask. HTH
Bob |
Request for Answer Clarification by
stevegt-ga
on
11 Jun 2002 16:02 PDT
The SV150 is interesting -- that should be useful in other ways. But
in https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=8200 we
found that there are 8,646 companies in Silicon Valley which have 20
or more employees. Using the SV150 to indicate that there are "150
big companies" in the valley is rather coarse. First we'd need to
define "big".
Here are more numbers from the GA article mentioned above:
Total # of businesses: 48,996
Businesses with
0-4 employees: 26,908
5-9 employees: 7,833
10-19 employees: 5,609
20-49 employees: 4,860
50-99 employees: 2,051
100-249 employees: 1,178
250-499 employees: 329
500-999 employees: 139
1000+ employees: 89
We shouldn't assume that there is a 1:1 ratio between headcount and
host count. But some 20 person companies might have 80 machines (web
farms, chip layout clusters), while 80 person companies might have 20
machines (loading dock workers, delivery drivers). So it might be
safe to assume that these factors balance out, and assume a 1:1 ratio
anyway, lacking better information.
The 62.9% RIPE ratio doesn't tell us much about what's on people's
desktops behind firewalls in commercial enterprises. I've posted
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=24434 to try
to find a better ratio -- I expect it's closer to 10%.
We shouldn't assume that 10% of companies above 20 employees have 20
or more UNIX machines. But we might be able to assume that a
20-person company might only have 2 UNIX machines, while a 200-person
company might have 20. This approach seems safe, lacking better data.
Interpolating from the above table, there seem to be 950 companies
with 200 or more employees. If we tentatively assume a 1:1 ratio of
headcount to machines, and if 10% is the right ratio of UNIX/non-UNIX
machines, and if it's safe to assume that a 200-person company is
likely to have 20 or more UNIX machines, then it would appear that
there are approximately 950 companies in Silicon Valley with 20 or
more UNIX machines.
Since this is an order of magnitude larger than the answer you gave
me, I'm throwing it back at you -- what do you think? Anything to
add? Can you see any holes in my reasoning other than those
assumptions I've already pointed out?
Thanks,
Steve
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Clarification of Answer by
remoran-ga
on
12 Jun 2002 05:42 PDT
Hi Steve,
Your reasoning is terrific. The only thing to be cautious on is the
percentage of the number of companies with 200 or more employees. Just
to make sure your 1.9% percentage is accurate, I went to
www.bizstats.com (a great site of business info) to check things out.
In http://www.bizstats.com/bizsizes98.htm , the ratio of companies, in
1998, making $1,000,000 and above out of the total number of companies
in the US - (total companies 24113, companies making a million or
more, 1,078.4)comes to 4.4%. With a 200 person company, I suspect the
percentage would come in line with your 1.9% figure because those
companies would almost certainly have annual revenues considerably
greater than 1 million, thus generating a ratio (Total Silicon Valley
companies - 48996, 950 companies - 200 employees, percentage - 1.9%.)
that corresponds with what you have.
I think you have your numbers. In the future, I do believe the UNIX
percentages will go up due to the increased popularty of Linux. Open
source is really taking hold and I, for one, am very glad it
is happening.
Bob
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