In part triggered by the introduction of micro-computers/personal-computers, the phenomenal growth of the Internet has made it nearly ubiquitous and accessible from almost anywhere in the world. This has resulted from the proliferation of web sites owned and operated by just about any individual, business, educational, government and non-government entity. Some companies even claim that their equipment runs most of the network on the Internet. But hardware is only half of the story. The other half is about software.

In the so-called "browser wars" of the late-90's, Microsoft and Netscape battled for supremacy in market share of web browsers, with MS finally winning out by giving away their browsers free bundled together with their operating system. But then again web browsers are only half of the equation. The other half is comprised of the web servers, the software that dishes out the information for the web browsers to display on-screen. So who is the BIG GUY when it comes to web server software?

A recent survey by netcraft.com showed that the Apache HTTP server software is the overwhelming favorite (56%) among web server software. Microsoft Internet Server is a distant second at 31% share. The Zeus web server and Netscape web server, which account for little more than 2% each, round out the top four. This could be because the Apache server, an open-source project, is available for several operating systems including Unix, Linux, Windows, OS/2 and BEOS.

An interesting bit of information from the survey is that less than half (43%) of the servers where Apache is installed was used for ".com" domains. The other three had more than half of the servers these are installed on were used for ".com" domains with Microsoft at 63%, Zeus at 54% and Netscape at 55%. Noteworthy also is that Intercosmos Tigershark web server is used for ".com" domains in 76% of its installed base, admittedly small at less than 1% of total. Another small fry, 4D Webstar for Apple MacOS webservers is predominantly used for ".com" domains at 87% but had just a little more than 1% share of web servers worldwide.

In a separate survey of top-level Internet domains by securityspace.com, more than half (51%) of the web servers worldwide belong to the ".com" commerce domain followed by the ".de" domain of Germany, a distant second at 7%, followed by the ".net" network domain at 6%, the ".org" non-profit organization domain at 5% and the ".uk" domain of the United Kingdom at 4%. Considering that American companies dominate in the ".com" domain and that the ".us" domain was just recently activated, it would seem that the US, Germany, and the UK are the top three countries which have taken the Internet plunge.