In this second part of our feature article on our 2002 AEC CAD IT Survey we discuss operating systems used in the AEC market and the survey results.

Platform OS Findings

We must start this section with a caveat. Due to the nature of our site's Macintosh orientation and our audience, a large percentage of our respondents utilize Macintosh computers. However we knew this going into this and it was our goal to obtain both Windows and mixed platform data. We did exceptionally well with the latter but would have preferred to have obtained more Windows-only firm data. In the end we ended up with a good collection of mixed results, despite the Macintosh prevalence.

Macintosh, Windows, UNIX: Which Is It?

It has turned out that a number of the firms in the study utilize multiple computer operating systems (OS's) with the predominant mixture being Macintosh and Windows. Quite a number of them also use Linux systems as well, more than double the percentage of UNIX. For this study Mac OS X was not considered UNIX despite that fact that it is. What we were interested in was the percentage of firms using more traditional UNIX OS's in mixed environments.

A graphic of the percentages can be seen in the interactive QuickTime movie below. You may wish to review that now. If your bandwidth is low and you skip the movie you can jump ahead as we discuss the results below.

Bring up QuickTime, hit play button to advance

OS Choices

The study question asked participants to mark all operating systems they utilized in their AEC CAD firm. Choices included: a) Mac, b) Windows, c) Linux and d) UNIX.

Although is was not clearly stated, Mac OS X was not considered UNIX in the study and many readers clarified their choice. Because the UNIX percentage was so low and because many readers pointed out the potential confusion, we believe none of the users claiming to use UNIX were meaning that to be OS X, especially since they also listed Mac and sometimes typed in OS X next to Mac. However, there is a slight chance our UNIX figures are off a bit in the high direction. (see the full report for more on this)

OS Platform Results

As can be seen in the above QuickTime movie, the percentage of OS usage for our 71 firm study broke down as follows:

As a Percentage of All 71 Firms:

• Mac OS/Mac OS X - 61 percent
• Windows OSs- 35 percent
• UNIX - 3 percent
• Linux - 7 percent

Interpretation: This means that 61 percent of the 71 firms (approximately 43 firms) used Mac OS or Mac OS X. Note that the total does not equal 100 percent because some firms utilize multiple operating systems. However, as can you see below, 85 percent of firms that used just one operating system used Macs. This is indicative of Architosh's audience and their input into the study. We hope in 2003 we gain 2 to 3 times more PC-only firms in the data.

An important finding in this information above is the fact that Linux has surpassed traditional UNIX operating systems. This is a figure which we will look forward to following in years go to come. Clearly Linux is on the rise in CAD/3D firms. We have more data on Linux in our full report.

As a Percentage of Single Platform Firms:

• Mac OS/Mac OS X - 85 percent
• Windows OSs- 15 percent
• UNIX - 0 percent
• Linux - 0 percent

Interpretation: These figures indicate out of just Single Platform Firms what percentage was using a particular OS. Again, indicative of our site's audience, Macintosh leads with 85 percent. No firms utilized just UNIX or Linux.

As a Percentage of Multi Platform Firms:

• Mac OS/Mac OS X - 93 percent
• Windows OSs- 90 percent
• UNIX - 7 percent
• Linux - 17 percent

Interpretation: These figures indicate that out of multi Platform Firms what percentage was using a particular OS. What is interesting to see is that out of this group of multi platform firms UNIX and Linux suddenly appear. Again, we had no firms which used just UNIX or Linux and we suspect there are very few if any companies that are doing that these days. These two OS types are supplementary, and why they cannot serve major roles independent of Windows or Macintosh is not yet clear. They appear to lack key items which allow for their sole use, and in the AEC market in particular, they lack the common business applications that AEC pros depend on.

As a Percentage of All OS Groups:

• Mac OS/Mac OS X - 48 percent
• Windows OSs- 9 percent
• UNIX - 0 percent
• Linux - 0 percent
• Mac/Win - 32 percent
• Mac/X - 4 percent
• Window/X - 3.5 percent
• Mac/Window/X - 3.5 percent

From here you can see that slightly less than half of our 71 firms used Macintosh exclusively, measured against 61 percent of all firms that used it in some capacity. That's because we had 32 percent of all firms using both Macintosh and Windows OS's—a fairly surprising figure considering the site's audience. This ratio between "exclusive use and partial use" of Macintosh is one of the more interesting figures we hope to track from year to year. Why you ask?

Because it may be a lead indicator of the necessity of Windows for Mac firms or taken the other direction of the degree of Mac OS autonomy in a Windows-centric world. This ratio must also be checked against our percentage of Windows-only firms, such that we can devise a way of coming up with a metric for evaluating Macintosh usage in the Windows dominated AEC market place. (More on this metric is inside the full report).

In looking at the figures above you should note that we had the same percentages of UNIX/Linux penetration in Mac firms, Windows firms, and hybrid Mac/Windows firms. This may indicate that UNIX/Linux integrates just as easily in Mac firms as in Windows firms. If this figure goes up next year compared to Windows firms we would not be too surprised because Mac OS X is likely seen as a driver for IT interest in UNIXes. And since Linux in particular is seen as a threat to the Windows hegemony, tracking the adoption of that growing OS in Mac firms versus Windows firms should be interesting.

Single Platform vs Multi Platform based on Firm Size:

1-2 Person Firm

• Single Platform Use - 83 percent
• Multi Platform Use - 17 percent

3-19 Person Firm

• Single Platform Use - 52 percent
• Multi Platform Use - 48 percent

20-49 Person Firm

• Single Platform Use - 43 percent
• Multi Platform Use - 57 percent

50-149 Person Firm

• Single Platform Use - 36 percent
• Multi Platform Use - 63 percent

This graph is one which is best experienced in the QuickTime animation because it really does a great job of showing this phenomena in the business computing landscape. Essentially what it shows is that as organizations get larger they grow less dependent on single vendor solutions (of all types including OS's) because of the internal diversity of resources at their disposal. In the AEC world is is really quite simple. Sole-proprietors and small firms simply don't have the internal resources and IT knowledge to take advantage of the full breath of IT solutions.

This isn't because small shops don't have the time and because mixed platforms take up more IT resources to support. That theory—as we shall see—is unfounded. Instead smaller firms lack internal knowledge about solutions because of the more limited nature of their staff's information technology background and experiences. Simply put, the larger the firm, the larger the staff, and thus the greater pool of internal IT knowledge.

We have much more on the variables of OS deployment by firm size, type and relationships to CAD and database software scenarios. This information can be found in our full report. Read the table of contents here.

You can see much of this information in slick Keynote-based QuickTimes movies, click here.

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