MicrosoftMicrosoft continues to dominate the system software market with the launch of the Vista operating system. But others are preparing tooShashwat DCThe Redmond giant could be under pressure in advanced markets due to a variety of reasons ranging from antitrust to free software; however, it continues to dominate the Indian software market. Even though there was a 1% drop in Microsoft's market share, just like last year, it still commands more than double all Linux varieties combined. The crucial factor for it to continue its reign is the arrival of Vista in India. Indian consumers lapped up 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 surpassed 2 million units (consumer + enterprise) and is growing at a fairly rapid pace. high. The reasons are not hard to guess. With each launch, Microsoft continues to expand its reach and even though it has over 13 offices across India; has created a distribution network that extends across the entire country. In fact, one of its main focuses is the SMSP (Small and Mid-Market Solution and Partners) space, for example in India, Microsoft is working with over 3,500 partners for SMBs alone. And while it may have a solid channel strategy in place, it is constantly exploring new ways to reach consumers, be it LFR (large format retail) or online. Reducing prices for retail boxes of consumer editions of Vista was another strategy to attract attention. This benefited people who bought standalone copies of Vista. The price reduction ranged from 13% to 39% and was only applicable for Vista Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate editions. System Software: Key Players System Software Revenue (in Rs Crores) 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 1242 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 million buyers in India. Though there is a challenge for Linux (read Red Hat), but what would please some veterans is that India remains a happy Unix land with flavors like Solaris, HP-UX and IBM enjoying a good share of come in