A recent survey of nearly 130 million Web sites by Netcraft shows for the first time that more than one-third are powered by Microsoft's IIS. Apache accounts for 48.4 percent of the market, its lowest percentage in nearly a decade. Netcraft estimates that IIS will eclipse Apache sometime in 2008, if the growth rate for IIS continues. Apache's market share decline is attributable not only to growth by IIS, but also to Google's use its own Web server and Go Daddy's migration of 3. 5 million sites from Apache to Microsoft IIS. Google moved its Blogger web site to its Google Front End Server earlier this year and Go Daddy moved its sites to IIS in 2006. IIS 7.0 is expected to be ready for distribution to hardware manufacturers by the end of 2007, for release with Microsoft Server 2008. The new version of IIS takes a different approach than earlier editions, with a special focus on Web services.

The new IIS is modular, which permits the greatest flexibility for administrators. It features a new interface that promises to be task-focused, more controllable, more secure and provides a greater administrative view of the overall status of the server.

When used with the features in .NET 3.0, IIS offers customizable support and data sharing among Web applications. Windows Server 2008 is also designed to support secure remote access and services.

The latest version of IIS also promises to be the most secure IIS ever designed by Microsoft, which has only issued three security patches for IIS since 2003. This is a good indication the Microsoft is finally taking security seriously.

Apache's most recent release, 2.2.4 has been available since January of this year. The apache software foundation announced last week that the ApacheCon 2007 developer's conference will take place November 14-16 in Atlanta. The conference is not typically used as an announcement platform. Registration is now open and the conference program can be viewed by visiting the site.