MicrosoftMicrosoft continues its dominance in the system software market with the launch of Vista OS. But the others are also preparing. Shashwat DC, the Redmond giant, could face some pressure in advanced markets for a variety of reasons ranging from antitrust to free software; nevertheless, it continues to dominate the Indian software market. Although there has been a one percent drop in Microsoft's market share, much like last year, it continues to be more than double that of all Linux strains combined. The crucial factor in the continuation of the reign was the arrival of Vista in India. Indian consumers have adopted the operating system. Since the consumer launch in January 2007, nearly 180 million Windows Vista licenses have been sold worldwide, and adoption of the operating system in India has already exceeded 2 million units (consumer + enterprise) and grew quite rapidly. The reasons are as follows: not difficult to guess. With each launch, Microsoft continues to expand its reach and even though it has more than 13 offices across India; it has established a distribution network that extends across the country. In fact, one of its main focuses is the SMSP (Small and Mid-Market Solution and Partners) space. For example, in India, Microsoft works with over 3,500 partners just for SMBs. Instead, it is constantly exploring new ways to reach consumers, whether in LFR (large formats) or online. Reducing the prices of retail packs of consumer editions of Vista was another strategy to attract attention. This benefited people purchasing standalone copies of Vista. The price reduction ranged from 13% to 39% and was applicable only to Vista Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate editions. System Software: Top Players System Software Revenue (in Rs crore) Growth (%) FY 08 FY 07 Microsoft Windows * 1,568,454 25% Linux *2,237,205 16% Sun Solaris 180 150 20% Novell Netware 117 60 95% HP Unix 110 73 51% Others 30 18 67% Total 1,242 960 29% Others include IBM Unix, SCO Unix, etc. Source: DQ Estimates *1 (includes Windows Vista, XP, Windows Mobile)*2 (includes Red Hat, Novell SuSe, Ubuntu and others)Windows is still closely tied to the growing aspirations of competing operating systems, especially now that Vista has also found more than 2 min takers in India. Although there is a Linux challenge (read Red Hat), but what would please some old-timers is that India remains a Unix happy country with versions like Solaris, HP-UX and IBM enjoying a good share of income.