Gains and Gaffes for Microsoft

Despite its dominance of desktop computing, Microsoft has long trailed in the market for web server software, where the open source Apache is the market leader. But recent data from Netcraft shows Microsoft making huge gains, as two leading domain registrars switched to Windows web servers.

Platform transitions at Network Solutions and Register.com helped Microsoft pick up 5 percent market share - more than 2 million domains - in just one month. Apache still leads with 53.7 percent of the server market, according to Netcraft, while Microsoft now has 34 percent.

One reason for Apache's lead is ongoing concern about the security of Microsoft web products. As if to underscore such concerns, hackers redirected thousands of Network Solutions domains last month, sending surprised domain owners to a web site run by the digital vandals. It turns out the break-in actually occurred on Microsoft IIS servers hosted at Interland, which provides outsourced domain hosting services to Network Solutions. This allowed NSI to retain some deniability ("OUR servers weren't breached!") but was probably little comfort to the domain owners. File this one away in the "Outsourcing Disasters to Avoid" file.