Bill Gates claims Exchange market share at 75%

February 7 2005

Bill Gates spoke at last week's Office Developer conference on a range of topics.  One interesting bit comes in the Q&A at about the 1:07:00 mark, in response to a question about licensing:

We've driven Exchange penetration up substantially over these last couple of years, talking about from 55% to 75% market share on Exchange.
A colleague and I just listened to the webcast a couple of times to make sure we didn't mis-hear this....

So is this another example of Microsoft's "say it enough times and it will be accepted as truth" approach?  I've never seen a market share report in our market that substantiates this.  As I've mentioned previously, Gartner indicates that IBM Lotus is #1 in e-mail/calendaring in their last published report, at 46% share worldwide.

Ed Brill | Chicago, IL USA Category:  Messaging  Add/View Comments [32]

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  1. 1  Ports http://mrports.blogspot.com/ | 2/7/2005 2:46:26 PM

    Or is it the share for America? It sounds about right if it is just the percentage for Redmond :-)

  1. 2  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 2/7/2005 2:50:45 PM

    What colour is the sky in Bill's world?

  1. 3  Tony S Lee www.peripheral.ca | 2/7/2005 3:20:16 PM

    Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.... which category does his statement fall under???

  1. 4  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 2/7/2005 3:40:49 PM

    @3 I love statistics. For example, I've already upgraded 100% of the laptops in my office to Notes 7! Tell the world! Honestly though, it is frustrating (poor Ed) to have someone like Gates be able to stand in public and state such figures.

  1. 5  Carl http://www.iminstant.com | 2/7/2005 3:53:04 PM

    He has enough money to buy the extra licenses to make this true, so watch it :-)

    It could be Microsoft is getting like the old IBM, and all his employees only tell him good news, and someone keeps telling him they took another 5% from Lotus and Novell.

  1. 6    | 2/7/2005 4:07:47 PM

    If that's the case then there is 75% of the market completely stuffed.

  1. 7  long time notes coward  | 2/7/2005 4:12:34 PM

    He was probably talking shipped, as opposed to actually used. 55% to 75% also sounds like a dubious error of margin.

  1. 8  Duffbert http://www.twduff.com | 2/7/2005 4:19:00 PM

    Come on, Ed... we can have 46% and they can have 75%... I'm sure there's enough pie there for everyone! :-)

  1. 9  Eric Parsons startingblockcomputing.com | 2/7/2005 4:34:04 PM

    They are trying to give away Exchange at our site. Maybe those are the numbers they are talking about.

  1. 10  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 2/7/2005 4:42:35 PM

    Don't we know a very large company where, because of the way the Microsoft licences are purchased, Microsoft would actually count them as Exchange users even though they use Notes? If so, how many other companies would that be true for?

    Hey Bill, even if you could claim 75%, that wouldn't necessarily means that 75% of the market were happy. It would just mean more customers for me to go and rescue.

  1. 11  Andy Steven www.uptime100.com.au | 2/7/2005 4:45:47 PM

    And we wonder why we have to deal with the Notes is dead comment from so many people. This sort of thing is what causes this to happen.

  1. 12  Richard Schwartz http://smokey.rhs.com/web/blog/poweroftheschwartz.nsf | 2/7/2005 5:00:05 PM

    I'd guess he's just measuring something other than seats. Given Exchange's dominance in SMB, I would not be at all surprised to find that Exchange has more customers than Domino. Or, since it doesn't scale as well as Domino, I would not be surprised if 75% of all commercial mail servers are Exchange servers.

    -rich

  1. 13  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/7/2005 6:56:47 PM

    @11 - and thus, why I blog it

    @12 - Rich, whether a good or a bad number, the point is, there's no SUBSTANTIATED data that supports the claim.

  1. 14  Ted thinkingthoughts.blogspot.com | 2/7/2005 7:09:28 PM

    He didn't get the statistic right, it's that Exchange has 75% of the market for spam/virus origination.

  1. 15  Chris Whisonant  | 2/7/2005 8:33:43 PM

    @14 - That number would be higher than that...

    @thread - What has Gate$ been smoking up in Washington?

  1. 16  Sally  | 2/7/2005 9:01:38 PM

    I wonder what the length of the ruler is in Bill's world?

  1. 17  Duffbert http://www.twduff.com | 2/8/2005 8:21:31 AM

    @16:

    12 inches is...

    <------------------- T H I S B I G ! ------------------->

  1. 18  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/8/2005 10:56:40 AM

    Alright my friends, just in case someone sees the words "ruler" and "penetration" and thinks we are going off-topic, let's move on.

    I wonder why nobody has defended Mr. Gates on this one yet?

  1. 19  Jack Dausman http://LeadershipByNumbers.com | 2/8/2005 2:41:05 PM

    You all are just too mean spirited. I'm sure the 75% came from the installed base of Outlook. :)

    You know I'm impressed that IBM/Lotus is back in the game. "What is the future of Exchange?" was a great comeback by Ambuj Goyal.

  1. 20  Randall Shimizu  | 2/8/2005 7:19:33 PM

    Dear Ed:

    Can you point me to the url for Bill Gates Exchange market share claims...??? Now I have both listened to and read the transcript from the "Office developeres conference" speech. Is there another speech that the Bill Gates made...??

    Thanks

    Randy

  1. 21  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/8/2005 7:24:47 PM

    no, it's in the Q&A, at the 1:07 mark. The Q&A was not transcribed (shock)

  1. 22  Randall Shimizu  | 2/11/2005 12:08:12 PM

    Dear Ed:

    I was wondering if you have recieved any info from Microsoft to back up Bill Gate's claims...?? I have tried contacting them and I am waiting a response....

  1. 23  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/11/2005 1:38:41 PM

    @22 - Microsoft employee Peter de Haas said he would look into it.

    { Link }

    I will be interested to hear what you hear from MS. I believe other contacts are being made as well.

  1. 24  Randall Shimizu  | 2/11/2005 2:26:06 PM

    No word yet and I think there is very few people that have heard about this.

    Later

    Randy

  1. 25    | 2/11/2005 9:13:50 PM

    Microsoft sent me this non-answer:

    I have requested what variable or way he was referring to....??

    Later

    Randy

    "From: "Nino Bilic" <ninob@microsoft.com>

    To: "Randall Shimizu" <rshimizu@consultant.com>

    Subject: RE: Bill Gates claims Exchange market share 75%..??

    Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:35:51 -0800

    >

    > Thanks for the question Randall. There are many ways of looking at share information and they depend on how you view the data by segment or operating system or a combination of several variables. The data that Bill Gates referred to is one very specific way of looking at the data.

    > The Exchange team most often relies on external studies by analyst firms, such as Radicati or Goldman Sachs for example. Those studies have recently estimated Exchange Server share closer to the 45%-50% range. These are consistent with much of our own internal analysis and

    > what we normally give to customers and partners who request the information. I hope this answers your question fully.

    > "

  1. 26  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 2/12/2005 10:03:13 AM

    @25 thanks for the post. So I guess the Exchange team and Mr. Bill are not exactly in synch with the statements they make. The Exchange team is happy to give the customers the truth if they ask, but the boss is more content to lie in keynotes. Nice way to do business :-)

  1. 27  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.com | 2/14/2005 3:20:50 PM

    @23 correction. I am planning to look into the whole marketshare discussion in general. Simply because the numbers vary quite a lot. I am still gathering the info. Espacially the historical data is nice.

    I am in not aiming to provide information on the information Gates has shared

  1. 28  Randall Shimizu  | 2/17/2005 8:03:42 PM

    I am really disappointed that Micrsoft is not willing to back up it's claims. I wonder if Microsoft will say later "Bill said it so it must be true" as a marketing ploy.

  1. 29  Gilles Sylvestre www.techtra.ca | 4/1/2005 8:55:46 AM

    For years, IBM was shipping a free copy of Lotus Note with every Intel server. These copies are counted in the IBM numbers.

    Most of those copies are not install

  1. 30  Gilles Sylvestre www.techtra.ca | 4/1/2005 8:55:58 AM

    For years, IBM was shipping a free copy of Lotus Note with every Intel server. These copies are counted in the IBM numbers.

    Most of these copies are not install

  1. 31  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 4/1/2005 9:48:48 AM

    @29/30 - Yes, some free licenses of Lotus Notes distributed over the years are counted in the SEATS numbers. but Gartner and IDC measure REVENUE of the most recent year, so historical distributions are irrelevant.

  1. 32  Getreal  | 1/19/2006 10:47:56 AM

    It is statistics people. Let's be realistic..."4 out of 5 dentists say using Lotus will prevent cavities" Well, if 4 out of 5 say then it must be true. You can get stats to say whatever you want them to say. In reality it is around 50%, but look at trends and Lotus new products...my prediction is that it will be closer to 75% than further away by at least 10% within 3 years.