This ought to please the ad wizards in Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). In two separate surveys recently, the results showed that Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) product was growing faster than one of the world's most popular web server software systems -- the open source Apache Server that runs on the free Linux operating system. Maybe we'll see Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer do another monkey dance soon.

Is this a celebration moment for Microsoftites? Possibly. NetCraft found that Microsoft's IIS was steadily gaining in popularity as a web-serving platform across the globe, and Port80 found that IIS was beating the free Apache web serving platform among enterprise systems in corporate America. Microsoft's web-serving systems have been around for quite some time, but have never been as popular as some of the competition (and Apache doesn't even cost anything).

Is Microsoft finally becoming a threat to open-source software at the computer server level? These surveys would seem to indicate that, although a few surveys in one year doesn't make an airtight case at all. There are also many things about the DIY nature of open-source computer systems that make survey results difficult to tabulate into meaningful data. Still, survey facts don't lie: Microsoft's IIS saw usage on 36.2% of all active web sites at the same time that Apache lost nearly a million web site names (dropping to a 48.4% market share).

[Disclosure: I own MSFT shares as of 8-24-07]

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has had a good time recently nipping at the heels of what many consider its largest enemy -- Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). While I'm not agreeing that Microsoft is in Google's direct cross-hairs more than other companies, the area of customer security and privacy is one area where both companies have taken potshots at one another recently. Google has taken criticism for the immense privacy breaches it apparently is making available to the world, while Microsoft's Windows operating system and other software constantly have security issues, from malware to spyware.

Google recently posted an entry to its security blog that lists the most common web servers that are used to host malware, which then gets distributed to consumer PCs -- turning them into "zombies" for illegal online activity. Yes, you guessed it -- Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) was listed along with the Apache web server (which runs the free Linux operating system) as responsible for distributing 49% of all malware on the internet. You probably know malware -- it's what is responsible for those annoying popups on many millions of PCs, and it generally slows down a PC significantly or crashes it altogether.

Now, to be fair, Google did list the open-source Apache web server as responsible for hosting and distributing malware on the internet as well, so I don't think this was a direct attack on Microsoft, but more as a statement of fact.

But, Google did take its analysis further and determined that Microsoft's server software was actually responsible for distributing malware twice as much as the Apache web server software. While this will not come as a surprise to many IT professionals, it seems that Google could have a motive of undermining trust in Microsoft's products by using published research and analysis showing weakness. Well, it's free to do that, and perhaps Microsoft could turn the tables on Google and point out weakness in the company's software -- except that Google does not make software for web servers.