Microsoft ended support for Windows NT 4.0 on January 1, 2005. Novell has taken advantage of this sales opportunity by releasing a public service announcement. This is the risk that Microsoft took when they ended support. Whenever you force someone to choose, they might not choose you.
In the March web server survey, NetCraft notes,
Apache continued to take market share from Microsoft servers, gaining nearly 0.7 percent last month after gains the previous two months. After little or no change in server market share during 2004, Apache has widened its margin by 2.0 percent thus far in 2005.
Without underlying operating system numbers to back me up, what we’re seeing are Microsoft’s price-sensitive NT customers leaving in droves.