FastCGI for IIS is LAUNCHED!

FastCGI for IIS has launched.

This is HUGE for developers in heterogeneous environments and developers that “get” the power of ASP.NET but also want to leverage the great PHP applications that are available out there.

• FastCGI is a free download and you can get it at http://www.iis.net/php
• FastCGI allows IIS to reuse CGI processes for multiple requests to PHP applications, enables PHP hosting on Windows with comparable reliability and performance to Linux.
• Microsoft is embracing the PHP community and to help bootstrap early adopters of PHP on Windows, we’ve been validating the popular PHP applications on Windows and publishing walkthroughs that give step by step instructions on how to setup and install the most popular PHP apps on top of FastCGI and IIS/Windows.

Get it here – http://www.iis.net/fastcgi

Microsoft is eager to announce the release of Microsoft FastCGI Extension for IIS 6.0 (FastCGI Extension) as a free download from the IIS community site, http://www.iis.net. For the first time, Microsoft is providing its customers full support for a stack of technology that enables reliable, scalable PHP hosting on production Internet Information Services 6.0 (IIS 6) Web servers.”

“Furthermore, Zend has validated their Zend Core offering, a certified and supported version of PHP, on this release of FastCGI and found PHP on Windows performs comparably to PHP on Linux. Andi Gutmans, Chief Technology Officer of Zend states, ‘We have been testing PHP on this FastCGI technology for over a year and we are very pleased with this official release from Microsoft. There is finally a PHP solution for Windows that offers a comparable level of stability and throughput as PHP on Linux.’ “

“This release could not have come at a more exciting time for the technology: previous beta releases on IIS.NET have had over 14,000 downloads and no less than six hosting partners have already begun offering PHP hosting on IIS 6 with the FastCGI Extension. In addition to the downloads, the http://www.iis.net community site also has a very active forum of users exchanging ideas and providing feedback about the FastCGI Extension. “

Windows 7 “top feature request list” leaked to the public

With Windows still managing to find its way to over 95 percent of the desktop computers sold each year, it’s not surprising that one can find plenty of people interested in giving their feedback about what future versions of Windows should be able to do. A few years ago, before Windows Vista had even shipped, Microsoft sent out a wish list form asking people what features they would like to see in the next version of Windows, currently code-named Windows 7. The top wished-for features in this list were recently leaked to the public and have popped up at various sites (e.g., Neowin). While anonymous sources at Microsoft tell us that they bear no relationship to the actual feature set Microsoft is currently writing for Windows 7, the list does provide interesting insight into what the Windows-using public most wants from Windows.

Read Windows 7 “top feature request list” leaked to the public >

Linux Losing Market Share to Windows Server

An interesting article by eWeek. Here is a sligthly modified version (removed commercials and additional links):

Experts say that migrations from Unix to Linux have slowed down because all the low-hanging fruit has now been picked.

Linux growth in the U.S. x86 server market has, over the past six quarters, started to falter and reverse its positive course relative to Windows Server and the market as a whole.

The annual rate at which Linux is growing in the x86 server space has fallen from around 53 percent in 2003, when Windows Server growth was in the mid-20 percent range, to a negative 4 percent growth in calendar year 2006, IDC Quarterly Server Tracker figures show.

Over the same time period, Windows has continued to report positive annual growth, outpacing the total growth rate in the x86 market by more than 4 percent in 2006, indicating that Linux has actually lost market share to Windows Server over this time.

The same holds true for worldwide Linux x86 server shipments, which dropped from the huge annual growth rate of about 45 percent is 2003 to growth of less than 10 percent in 2006, the IDC figures show.

One of the biggest reasons for this is that the migrations from Unix to Linux have slowed down markedly.

“We have seen the rate of migration from Unix slow over the past few quarters,” IDC analyst Matt Eastwood told eWEEK. “In my view this is because much of the low-hanging fruit has been moved and the applications that remain on Unix are stickier because they are seen as business critical and more political candidates for migration overall.”

IDC analyst Al Gillen pointed out that the number of servers shipped does not perfectly equal the number of operating systems in the market. This is particularly the case with Linux where a substantial portion of the overall market opportunity comes from deployments aboard recycled servers, PCs and workstations deployed as servers, and Linux deployed as a guest operating system.

“This does not contradict any trending taking place on server hardware,” Gillen said.

He added: “But we do need to remember that the Linux software ecosystem does not track exactly the same as does x86 hardware shipments.”

Margaret Lewis, the director of commercial solutions for AMD in Austin, Texas, has also noticed the slowdown in Linux growth over the past few quarters.

In 2000, Windows comprised about half of the server operating system market, followed by Unix and Netware at about 17 percent each and Linux reaching towards 10 percent, she said, noting that today Windows owns about 70 percent, Linux about 20 percent, with Unix below 10 percent and Netware barely registering.

“Looking at these large operating system market swings, you could draw the conclusion that Linux has gotten the ‘low-hanging fruit’ in terms of migration,” Lewis said.

“Without the larger pool of Unix and NetWare users who are ripe for migration, there is not quite the level of fuel. You could assume that Linux is now ready to settle down to a more regular growth curve representative of a more mature technology.”

The fact that Windows has maintained a steady growth rate over this same time frame could be the result of companies expanding their Windows-based IT infrastructure to meet the demands of users who always want to be online, she said.

“Windows-based Web hosting sites are experiencing strong growth, the Exchange infrastructure is expanding to offer unified messaging and many small businesses are moving to a real server infrastructure for basic infrastructure instead of a network of desktops,” Lewis said.

Bill Hilf, general manager of Windows Server marketing and platform strategy at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., has also noticed these trends, and says that increased customer adoption of Windows Server 2003 in a broad range of enterprise scenarios is driving significant growth of that business.

“I spend a lot of time talking with both Linux and Windows customers and partners, and the feedback that I hear is that, in volume, Linux is primarily deployed in two workloads—high-performance computing and as Web servers,” Hilf told eWEEK.

“It appears that Linux server growth is moderating considerably and, while it’s certainly still a player, it’s not being considered across the broad range of workloads that Windows Server is, from ERP to CRM to messaging and collaboration to core infrastructure like file and print,” he said.