James Governor of Redmonk has an interesting analysis of the supposed decline of Apache in the latest Netcraft survey. Infoworld first reported the story, and their headline was “Microsoft’s IIS may catch Apache in Web server market.” The lede is no less provocative: “Microsoft’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.” (Matt Asay calls it “The unthinkable.”)

Governor and his friend go to the Netcraft data, though, and find that it’s really a reporting anomaly. Netcraft just began breaking out Google’s web server — which is probably of Apache ancestry in any event — in May, accounting for most of the drop in Apache’s market share. Check out that pink line in the lower right-hand corner:

But wait, Governor says, that’s not all: while Apache may still rule in absolute numbers, Microsoft has long controlled the corporate market. Here‘s some less quantitative, more anecdotal information that points in that direction:

Based on my experience (and here’s a survey from Port 80 if that isn’t good enough), this rings true; this is just one among the many ways that enterprise computing is different from the rest of the world.