By a report from Netcraft, Apache's share of Web Servers has dropped from 71% in November 2005 to 48.2% while IIS's market share is 36.2% now approaching to Apache's. I guess by releasing IIS 7.0 over Windows Server 2008 with Server Core features, Apache would loos the game in the late of 2008.
Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Information Services (IIS) continues to narrow the gap with the open-source Apache Web server, with a survey firm suggesting that the longtime second banana could surpass Apache as early as next year.
Microsoft, which added 2.6 million Web sites in the last month, grew to 36.2 percent of all active Web sites, according to figures released Monday by U.K.-based research firm, Netcraft Ltd. Apache lost nearly a million Web site names, as its share of active Web sites fell to 48.4 percent.
Apache now leads IIS, which is bundled with Windows Server, by 12.2 percent among active Web sites, a list which excludes registered domain names that are not yet in actual usage.
"But if Microsoft continues to gain share at its current pace, it could close the gap on Apache sometime in 2008," said the Netcraft posting accompanying the survey results.
That's a major turnaround in two years. Apache has led the Netcraft survey since its inception in 1995. By November 2005 it was running 71 percent of all Web sites. That gave Apache a greater-than 50 percent lead over IIS's 20.2 percent share, and caused commentators such as Oracle Corp. executive Larry Ellison to declare that IIS had been "wiped off the face of the earth" by Apache.