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Study: Nearly 20 Percent of Orgs Still Using Windows Server 2003

Even though it lost Microsoft's product update support one year ago, Windows Server 2003 is still in use by nearly one-fifth of organizations, according to a recent Spiceworks report.

Spiceworks, a provider of management solutions for IT pros, found Windows Server 2003's market share to be at 18 percent, based on data sampled last month. In addition, 53 percent of organizations in its survey were running "at least one instance" of Windows Server 2003.

The report, which also looked at hypervisor deployments, used data from Spiceworks' inventory software to compile the information. Samplings from "hundreds of millions of devices" were tapped, a spokesperson for the company clarified.

The 18 percent market share for Windows Server 2003 is the same amount found a year ago by Big Data solutions provider CloudPhysics in its industry survey. Clearly, the samples weren't the same, but possibly the needle isn't moving too much on Windows Server 2003 upgrades.

Despite the real security issues for organization in running unsupported software, organizations likely have their reasons for not making the move. Reasons for not getting off Windows Server 2003 included "no immediate need, lack of time, and budget constraints," according to Spiceworks' report.

Windows Server 2008 topped the list of most-used server software at 45 percent, per Spiceworks' data. The next most-used server software was Windows Server 2012 at 24 percent. The study even discovered some Windows Server 2000 use at 1 percent. Linux server software was used by 12 percent.

Server virtualization, at 76 percent, was a common practice among organizations, per Spiceworks' study. Most organizations (71 percent) used VMware's vSphere ESXi hypervisor over Microsoft's Hyper-V (23 percent). Citrix hypervisors were used by 6 percent of organizations.

If an organization was smaller, it tended to use Hyper-V, the study found.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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