Linux Grabs #2 Server OS Sales Spot, NT Still #1

Beta Master writes "CNet reports that sales of Linux for servers are higher than sales for any other operating system except WinNT. IDG marketing group statistics are included. Full story here."

Comments

jiggy smalls is da illest

[Anonymous Coward]

jiggy jiggy jiggy smalls is da illest

first

[Anonymous Coward]

first

DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

of course NT is #1. it costs money, therefore the PHBs think its better. it makes no sense, but thats the way things work. =(

Re:DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it backwords, NT is better so they can charge for it, unlike Linux which has to be given away, and even then it only comes in #2.

1

[Anonymous Coward]

i hope first

Re:1

[Anonymous Coward]

damn, wasn't even close. I quit..I'm packing up my toys and going home. screeeewww you guys Anybody got some cool warez for a commodore 64?

Mm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Jon Katz grabs nutsack, Tribsoft still #1

Not Long Now

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon every grandmother will be using *nix. Will this new fame mean the destruction of the comraderie in the open source community? I'm a *nix newbie and sense a "popularity will kill the heart and soul of the OS community" Is this true? Is this Good or Bad?

Re:Not Long Now

[xyz123]

Don't worry. As soon as everyone runs Linux, just switch to FreeBSD or the Hurd. Should keep you alternative for years to come.

On a related note, I occasionally still see Linux described as "alternative" by some people. I guess that it can nowadays hardly be considered "alternative". It seems to be the second most popular OS by now...

Netware still rocks your lame ass

[Anonymous Coward]

EOF

Re:Netware still rocks your lame ass

[Anonymous Coward]

What is netware?

Money...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, hang on here. NT may have $1.2bn share, but how much did you pay for your last copy of Linux?

well, yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

when i see red hat for sale at over 100 quid in the shops, i think, waste of money when you can get it free! i bet most linux users think the same thing. i mean, if you're not competent to adminstrate a server without needing support from red hat or whoever, then you shouldn't be using it anyway and sticking to nt.

freebsd, the best o/s in dee vorld ...

The numbers may be skewed

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... What is their determination for the OS server money pool? Does Linux take up so little (and commercial UNIX take up so much) because of the unit price of each copy of the software?

If so, of course NT is going to have a bigger piece of the money pie, it costs several times more than the most expensive Linux distributions.

Something of note however: If the health of an economy, as some suggest, is based upon the circulation of money, what is the effect of free OSes? Do we automatically assume that people/corporations will just spend that money elsewhere and life goes on unmolested?

- Life is a ticker tape parade. The question is who has to clean it up.

I support NT

[Anonymous Coward]

NT works great for those who use it.

trolling for negative mod points!

NT vs. Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

well, its great and all that linux can catch up to NT in the server market sales, but as the article said, thats not including the free downloads, nor the restribution of purchased CDs etc. So if Linux "is" the number two choice of an operating system, when can we get more support from hardware developers and such? Granted a server *may* not always be upgraded like a standard PC, however with such a versitle system, cant we get better supported? Then again, Linux support has come a long way over the past year or so...

Beware the Penguin

What about sales of...

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU/Linux?

First

[Anonymous Coward]

post

MS Needs to lower prices for academia

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is going to loose market shares in the "Federal" sector especially in Scools. If they are smart they will lower the prices on NT so the price just covers Manuals and distribution media. If they do not do this inferior os'es like Linux will take over to much of this market. ~NetBSD to the people!

Re:MS Needs to lower prices for academia

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what you mean -- NT for school and other big places to run off of. But as a student in a university, I bought an Academic version of Visual C++ over a year ago and it came with a "free" NT 4.0 CD. Not as cheap as Linux, since I paid $90 for the Visual C++ stuff, but still not bad. I still run it today, but there's no way in heck I'm going to pay $200-300 for Windows 2000. I guess I'm going to focus more on Linux when NT 4.0 becomes obsolete for all the newer Windows software.

Re:That Wonderful Shipped Benchmark

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's easy to predict that very few people who pay money for NT Server are doing so just to 'check it out' to satisfy curiosity. So it's safe to say that the sales figures for NT Server reflect it's install base.

With Linux, on the other hand, there needs to be a multiplier effect accounted for. I personally have probably 30-40 different Linux install CDs from various venues. And two machines which actually have Linux installed on them. So in my case a 15x or 20x multiplier factor needs to be calculated. Overall, on the average, the multiplier factor is probably safer to set at something like 10x (to account for the fact that Linux CD's come with just about anything Linux-oriented. They are not included in McDonald's Happy Meals yet, but it's being looked into).

So, it's safe to say that Linux sales estimates should be scaled back by a factor of ten to come up with install base numbers.

This is very interesting....

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that this post will be entirely content free. Now you may be asking, why would you do such a thing. The answer is not that easy. Let me elaborate........

Where...

[Anonymous Coward]

are the moderators. Lots of -1 here.

Re:No growth of NT market share though...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux won't start eating into the NT market share until it's finished killing and stripping the meat off the bones of all the commercial Unix that is out there. That is where the cannibalism is running rampant.

Look for declining market share. Guess where it's happening? Then and only then form your conclusions about what Linux is killing.

Right on...

[Anonymous Coward]

show these Linux losers what a real OS can do.

Don't worry, the moderators are off today.

Re:Note the amount of revenue.

[Anonymous Coward]

also note however that none of the Linux companies have the overhead of MS (or Sun, etc.) because Linux is a community effort.

No...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not Unix dipshit. It's Unix like.

Kind of the way you are lifelike, but not real.

Re:Creative CNET statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh! Linux is not UNIX!

Re:Keep in mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that one NT blows Linux away.

#1

[Anonymous Coward]

of course nt is #1 it's the best. see even you gay linux zeelotz admit it.

The reason Linux is #2

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoaa partner. Lets back the zelot truck up a minute. The reason Linux is #2 and NT is number one is because NT is better, easire to learn, more reliable and there are more NT resources out there than Linux. Linux will allways be second to Nt or 2K because there is more targeted and I might say better talent developing NT than Linux. Face it, Linux has a niche and it's at the number 2 place, be grateful a few years ago Linux wasn't even on the list.

Re:The reason Linux is #2

[Anonymous Coward]

Do your parents know you use their computer?

Re:The reason Linux is #2

[SoftwareJanitor]

The reason that NT is number one in terms of sales is because NT preloads are force fed to a lot of people and Linux numbers are generally under reported. NT is also advertised significantly more and until recently had a nearly unassailable position with the trade press. In my opinion, NT is worse, harder to learn, less reliable and has less resources than Linux. Only a fool would make a prediction that a given product will always be #1, especially when the #2 product is not only not that far behind, it has a growth rate that shows it will overtake the #1 product within the next year or so. The numbers in the article basically look like NT had a zero growth rate in market share. Your statement that there is more targeted and better talent developing NT than Linux just doesn't seem to jive with reality. Linux is currently breaking out of the niches it started out in to become widely accepted for a variety of general purpose uses. NT appears to be facing a point where it is slowing down.

Re:That Wonderful Shipped Benchmark

[Anonymous Coward]

What a stupid argument, I personally have installed Linux on many computers without ever purchased it. I don't see why would people buy ten different distros before choosing one ...

Re:Linux sales only

[Anonymous Coward]

One might also wonder how many of these "servers" are sitting idle on some students desktop.

The Real Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so that's how many commercial license included shipments there were. Which means, of the twelveserver boxes that I know people in my department ordered, they would have counted:

2 Linux
10 Windows
8 not recorded - since they were built from parts

But, in reality, these became
12 Linux
6 Windows
2 Linux/Windows

Because at some stores they won't sell Linux, so you buy the box and install Linux on top.

Note that only the two servers I bought got counted as Linux boxen. And only 4 total Linux OS "licenses" were sold to create 12-14 Linux boxen.

That is the true picture.

Wish I hadn't trashed my cookie file, can't remember my password and my email is at my old house ...

Will in Seattle

Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope your response wasn't some sort of rebuttal, because something tells me that guy was being sarcastic.

Re:Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

...something tells me that guy was being sarcastic.

Microsoft morons haven't the intelligence to see or understand sarcasm.

Re:Note the amount of revenue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousands from one CD? Right. Dozens maybe. Hundreds in rare situations.

Linux vs. NT

[Anonymous Coward]

grits has grabbed the #1 spot in my pants. thank you.

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, it's getting darn scalable now. SMP is improving by leaps and bounds, and there's an open source Logical Volume Manager project that, while still in beta, is supposed to work pretty darn well - apparently it's included in Alan Cox's -ac kernel releases, and Suse releases it with their distro. Soon it will rival AIX's LVM. This means that disk limits are a thing of the past. And we have at least 1 working journalling file system (ReiserFS), with ext3 and IBM's JFS on the way. Linux also supports RAID, both hardware and in software. So, especially with the upcoming 2.4 release, I'd say Linux scales up pretty well. It only gets better.

Re:Sales?

[Anonymous Coward]

Downloads are irrelevant in the server market. Burned CDs are possible, but more often than not if you are setting up a commercial/production server you buy a copy of the media that you can keep on hand.

Server Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that the IDG figures relate to server sales. (Tho that does not negate the import of the report. See this story for the reason why. [Just read it. It's pertinent. Trust me.])

While it would appear that Linux is snagging mostly Unix and NetWare market share, as I believe M$ has confidently predicted in the past, one should not discount the NT servers sales that are not happening because potential customers are choosing Linux instead. And I predict that should Linux continue to prove its worth in the Enterprise, and should an increasing number of known and credible ISVs port their products--both server and client products--to Linux, we will soon see Linux's numbers begin to overtake those of NT's. (Remember: you saw it here first, folks :-).)

Where I work is an excellent example. We have about a half-dozen servers, of various sizes and in various roles, that we'll be deploying in the next few months. They will all be Linux-based. (Maybe some Sun Sparc Solaris--it depends.) The Corporate IT director has assured me that we will not be deploying any Ms-WinNT servers. As a matter-of-fact: one of those new servers will be replacing an existing Ms-WinNT server.

He mentioned something about reliability, IIRC.

Linux Numbers Artifically high

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that the Linux numbers are artificially high as this is just a way of not paying for NT twice.

Most corporations already have an NT site license so they buy a Linux installed server as its cheaper, nuke Linux then install their own copy of NT.

Re:Linux Numbers Artifically high

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey man quit giving away *the secret*

Re:Linux Numbers Artifically high

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just buy the server without an OS? That's even cheaper than the Linux option.

Re:Linux Numbers Artifically high

[Masked Marauder]

That's kinda dumb. Why buy a pre-installed OS at all if you're just going to install NT over it?

Often, it works the other way around. I have NT on my laptop because that is how it came from the factory. I had no choice. The vendor said I could have the machine with NT, Linux or Linux and NT, all for the same price. Even if I had asked for the Linux-only configuration, it would still be logged as an NT sale. Remember last year's Windows return-athon that fizzled?

They may take the MS OS off of the disk, but it doesn't come off of the price. Unless your company is buying enough volume of machines to make it worth the supplier's while to step outside their contract with MS, you may well be paying for an MS OS on each of those machines anyway.

Hey moron.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It was an exagerration.

Kind of like saying your dick is longer than an inch.

Uncounted copies of Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Several others have mentioned ftp'd and passed-around copies of Linux here, which raises another point: What about all the people who got a "free" Linux CD with a book? I bet a LOT of people got their copy of Linux that way--they read some articles about Linux, go to the book store, and surprise! they find out that they can pay $40 for a book and get the OS, too.

Re:its only a matter of time

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys gotta be careful when you start waggling about "stability". You see MS has a clue and one of their plans is that they are going to have several levels of platform. One of those is going to be the datawarehouse server. You will only be able to install certified drivers on that puppy. You won't be expected to sit in front of it and install every random piece of shit you happen to download of the net. It'll have uptimes directly correlating to the cluefulness of the admins (much like every other OS.)

Re:Creative CNET statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU's not UNIX!!!

The only reason anyone uses NT:

[Anonymous Coward]

They're too stupid to use anything else.

Here numbers, there numbers, everywhere numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Please learn which word to use. "There" is not "their" is not "they're", even though they sound the same. "You" is not "yew" is not "ewe". "It's" and "its" have radically different meanings.

Re:What would Hitler do?

[Anonymous Coward]

HAIL AND KILL!!
HAIL AND KILL!!
HAIL AND KILL!!

NT still dominates!

[Anonymous Coward]

This just shows that Linux is *NOT* taking over anything but the other Unices. That's all. It has made no progress against NT.

Re:NT still dominates!

[Anonymous Coward]

...no progress against NT.

Ahem... In case you hadn't noticed: Ms-WinNT has made no progress against 'nix, either. Does it not indicate to you that perhaps something's in the air when NT was gaining ground so rapidly, and now it's ground to a virtual halt? Hello?

Re:Linux sales only

[Anonymous Coward]

One might also wonder how many of these "servers" are sitting idle on some students desktop.

Yup, idle servers of BOTH OSes. I may be wrong, but the article didn't make mention of difference between NT Workstation and NT Server, so all copies of NT workstation may be included here, while not a genuinely server environment. Same for linux.

Re:OOOOH LA LA! RPM!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhhh you young whippersnappers are too damn lazy. Why I remember when everything was in SOURCE, the way it's supposed to be! There was no 'rpm -i' or 'deb'... it was all 'make this' and 'gcc +o that'! Thems was the days!

Re:Unacceptable.

[Anonymous Coward]

You use NT? How can we assign any value to your opinions, then? Now if you only used Linux and thought NT was #1, we could believe you. You use NT. Really? The mind boggles.

Re:But is anyone making any PROFIT ?????

[Anonymous Coward]

go fuck yourself

Moderate this up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this ranked so low?

This moderation system just doesn't work.

No, these are physical boxen licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

What they count is how many OS licenses you purchased with your manufactured box that they shipped/sold. So this means all the downloaders are not counted. They don't count when you upgrade a WinNT box to a Linux box, as you purchase a separate Linux OS disk. They only count "boxes ordered which have an OS on them at the time of shipment". Which means Linux must be VERY MUCH MORE of a percent of total Server OS purchases, since people frequently buy server boxen with Win OS and upgrade them. Will in Seattle and if I could just remember my password ....

^Moderate this UP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true... we just did this with 12 servers at my company.

You count as zero for Linux Servers, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, unless you bought a box with Linux OS preinstalled, they don't count you as a Linux Server. They only count Linux Workstations and Linux Servers that come with the OS preinstalled. So, you can buy tons of copies of Linux OS from egghead.com or cheapbytes or your corner store and you won't show up as a "real server OS purchase". Ever. Will in Seattle what was my password? wish i knew

Re:its only a matter of time

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are serious about your server, you had better fucking have reliable hardware. Duh.

Re:Creative CNET statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU's not useful. It is for hippie commie Stallman sucking geeks.

NT Numbers Artifically high

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if they buy an NT site license and then nuke it with Linux from a single CD, that counts as: 1000 NT boxen 1 Linux boxen (if bought from a server manufacturer) or 1000 NT boxen 0 Linux boxen (since they bought the CD from Red Hat and it didn't come with the box) That's how you measure Server OS sales. Will in Seattle dang, no password

Re:Linux machines could be lower than indicated, t

[Anonymous Coward]

You bought all those copies of Linux last year? You do know that the numbers quoted are for sales LAST YEAR not cumulative.

Linux Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

The key point that struck me in the article was the billions in revenue generated by NT vs. Linux. In other words, there is a huge cost and transfer of wealth to Redmond for NT. With Linux, the licence cost vanishes, you're just paying for CD's and books. No upgrade fees, like Windows 2000 will cost. It's a judgement call on whether the billions are really buying you that much more.

Re:Server or Desktop, I can't tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn down the lights for a second and let me get my voice modulator turned on...

There, that's better. Only legally does NT require you to buy a copy for each server. I know for a fact that there are at least two businesses in my home town that have more than one installed NT server from the same CD set. One for production purposes and one for development of the production enviroment. Much like any rational person, you don't screw around on your production hardware. But the IT weenies still need a dev platform and you can bet that they ain't gonna go to the bother of purchasing another license...

Sick of trolls.

[Anonymous Coward]

You trolls really aught to get a life.

Re:Keep in mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which NT are you talking about? Embedded NT? NT Workstation? NT Server? NT Advanced Server? NT Enterprise Server? Which one is the one?

Re:Sales vs. Installs

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder which one had more *re-installs*. My bet is Linux.

Re:Linux Numbers *NOT* Artifically high

[Anonymous Coward]

how many big name companies have been selling servers with the option of installing linux?

and how many of those actually charge less than a server with NT?

I'd bet most of the servers running linux out there today were actually purchased with windoze, and converted. So the NT numbers are artifically high. I'm very sure it's harder to buy a server without NT than it is to just buy an NT server and convert it. At least in the past 5 years or so.

Transfer of surplus value to customers

[Anonymous Coward]

... what is the effect of free OSes? Do we automatically assume that people/corporations will just spend that money elsewhere and life goes on unmolested?

Basically, yes. People who would buy a $700 OS simply a $40 OS and spend $660 on whatever else they want (including the possibility that they will work less and have more free time to enjoy life however they want).

And some other people who wouldn't buy a $700 OS will buy a $40 OS. They were in a neutral outcome with the $700 OS (no transaction) and now they are in a positive outcome (they chose to buy the $40 OS so it must be worth more than $40 in cash to them).

Of course, the price of Linux can be $0, $40, $130, or lots of other prices, depending on exactly what one buys. $40 is the rough price of the product that appears roughly similar to the $700 product (convenient physical media, manual, installation support, reputable company that a typical suit has heard of).

Re:Note the amount of revenue.

[Anonymous Coward]

"it accounted for 1 or 2% of the total revenue for operating systems last " I guess it depends on how you figure OS revenue. Is it just the dollars spent on the OS? Or when IBM [or anybody else] sells a machine with Linux installed is the fact the machine might not have been bought at all taken into account? Or how about all those server appliances that are built around Linux. They don't charge extra for Linux but you couldn't ship the hardware without it or something similar. So how do you count? It's like figuring out what the market for calculator accessories is by just counting the people who buy one. Most people get by with what is bundled with the OS. But they are still interested in using one.

NT subway cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I have been in more than one subway car where *every ad* was for Microsoft Windows 2000.

Much as I am tempted to grab some penguin stickers, I think defacing the ads would send the wrong message. Maybe a more AOL approach ... bundle free Linux CD's with the Wall Street Journal on February 17 ...

Re:OOOOH LA LA! RPM!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate RPMs. I want to put stuff where I want. I want to decide!!#!@#.

Not cannibalizing NT...yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the numbers: Netware down 4%; All other Unix down 4%; Other down 1%; Linux up 9%. It's not hard to see where Linux server sales growth came from.

Soon the Penguin will set its sights on Redmond, however, and then...:-)

Oh, boo hoo.

[Anonymous Coward]

See the coming of ., (Dotcomma. News for Daemons!)

I'm confused here. Are you all sick of Windows and Microsoft because it's a) a monopoly, or b) just.. crashes.. badly?

In the case of a, what happens *IF*, and I say, *IF*, Linux crushes Microsoft? Oo. Linux is number 1. Monopoly, monopoly! You all going to switch to BSD and repeat the underdog cycle? Granted, I don't see Linus sitting in a chair plotting evil buisness practices, but hey, monopolies are monopolies, no?

In the case of b, buy yourself a clue. No, they're cheap, buy two. I currently dual boot between Linux and Win 98. Frankly, I've never had any problems with Win 98. Blue Screens of Death happening every ten seconds? Not on my box. Perhaps you people are forgetting to.. defrag? (Yeah. I know. It's a pain in the ass. Glad I don't need to wait two hours to defrag my Linux disk every week.)

Most of the problems with Windows are in it's programs. Ie, not the Operating System, the actual crap you run. Games are notoriously badly programmed, as Upper Management(tm) harps at the poor overworked coders to rush ahead so they can ship before bugs are fixed. The same with other apps.

Oh, did I leave out c? Yes, I did. c) Or are you just flaming Microsoft so you can impress your friends and jump on the proverbial bandwagon?

Linux wasn't made to be a religion. Linux wasn't made to be a dominating force, meant to crush all opposition in holy righteousness. Linux was made so people could dick around with an OS's guts.

Re:Oh, boo hoo.

[SoftwareJanitor]

If Linux was #1, it still wouldn't necessarily be a monopoly. Why? Because you'd still have a choice between the different distributions. If *BSD was better for what I wanted to do, I might switch to it. I try *BSD every now and then, to keep in touch. I was a big-time BSD supporter back in the 4.3BSD days. Right now, Linux works better for what I want, so I use it. Linux being an underdog has little to nothing to do with it.

I don't use Windows 9x at all at home, but I am subjected to it some at work. It doesn't crash every ten seconds, to be sure. It does however crash at least once or twice a week on average and does other strange and bizarre things now and then. NT boxes seem to be more reliable than that, they maybe seem to go a month or so on average between reboots. Both are oodles better than Windows 3.1 was, where I literally often had to reboot several times a day. However, in comparison, I am used to seeing Linux boxes run several months without rebooting, and I push my Linux boxes at home a lot harder than I do Windows anything at work because Linux is my primary OS at home, and Solaris is my primary OS at work. As a point, I never run games at work and pretty much only use a few business apps.

As for your point C. I was flaming Microsoft before it ever became fashionable to do so, and if Microsoft ever cleans up their act, I will happily stop. I used to flame IBM as bad or worse than Microsoft, but since they have gone a long way towards reinventing themselves as an ethical and forward thinking company, I've changed my tune.

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have a look at Suns earnings before you feel too sorry for them. Sun is basically a hardware company. They make their money from those big industrial servers and then servicing them. Suns stock has gone up about %400 percent over the past year with big gains in earnings (imagine that... a tech company that actually makes money)

Ther are few that can touch Sun when it comes to the *real high end enterprise* market. Linux and NT (despite what the marketing drones from MS say) are not in direct competition with Sun.

this is nothing but unix taking from netware.

[Anonymous Coward]

so (linux + unix) took 5% of the market from (other + netware). am i missing something, or do the numbers show nothing more than the obvious facts that netware is dying, and linux is becoming a popular flavor of unix?

i'm simply amazed that people can look at these numbers and say "linux is killing nt". unix and windows are killing netware, and linux is killing other unixes. linux isn't doing a damn thing to windows.

Moderate this EXAMPLE

[Anonymous Coward]

Please read all the way through this before you chose to moderate it down. There is actually good information written below.

I love Linux and I hope it does nothing but increases in market share but to compare it to a Sun server is premature. At this point it is kind of like that issue of NT Magazine we all still laugh at even to this day. The front cover read NT vs. UNIX. (I mean almost wet my pants. :-))

A Sun server is one of the best when ran as a real enterprise database server. For example, I would chalenge any one to compare bench marks on Linux, NT and Sun Servers that are running as an Oracle database server. Sorry to tell you folks, but while Oracle runs really well under Linux it still doesn't compare to running it on a Sun server. Nothing out there can touch the market that Sun holds on Enterprise Oracle database servers.

NOTHING.... YET!!!!!!!

Re:Moderate this EXAMPLE

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoyed that issue of "Window NT" magazine.

There was an interesting case study where a single 5 year old Sun/Apache box was replaced with four IIS web servers, plus one workstation whose only job was to ping the servers and reboot them if necessary. Another win for NT!

Re:Moderate this EXAMPLE

[CmdrPinkTaco]

so what happens when the box that's designed to ping the other boxes goes BSOD? Then you're fscked.
--------------------------------------------

Re:No growth of NT market share though...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where they get their figures for all of this, but if the NT figures come from Microsoft, I wouldn't trust them-- the people at Microsoft have already shown the world that they are all LIARS.

Re:its only a matter of time

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it is only a matter of time that Linux can overtake NT. Not to be a Linux zealot or anything, but the fact that Linux is less expensive it can be a better way to go.

Sticker price is not everything, in fact for servers, it is pretty low in the decision making process. Total cost of ownership is what is important to suits, and no one has conclusively proven that Linux or NT has a significant advantage over the other in that area, although several articles in magazines have given NT the upper hand in TCO.

This is funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the list from bottom to top you get an other rank:

Stability/reliability of server OS
==================================
1. Other
2. Unix
3. Netware
4. Linux
5. NT

=> Quality doesn't sale products.

I think this is the reason of Microsoft's (and Linux' recent) success. (Remember how stable 2.0.3* kernels were compared to 2.2.*?)

Growning popularity isn't growing capability.

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of benchmarks performed by two very different companies and reported on slashdot have identified shortcomings in Linux in the heavy use areas. Its great to be growing faster in popularity than any other server, but I hope that the people developing the kernel will seriously carefully consider the criticisms and suggestions, especially IBM's (who supports Linux), and work on the improvements that will enable Linux to seriously compete in the heavyduty SMP server market.

Re:too bad no real tracking

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not certain how representative my company is but we are running several Linux installs for production. From one CD I have installed a uucp gateway and Samba server, plus three desktops for the technical support staff to use (mainly because they liked the 132x40 mode SVGAConsole screen). In my last company I installed two machines and had several copies burned and distributed.
I am now in the process of migrating DNS and DHCP from a Sun E6500 to smaller Intel boxes (keeping the 6500 as a database server only and providing redundancy).
I *know* that at least two NT licenses were not purchased because of these Linux installs.

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel kinda bad for Sun, though. They're screwed no matter which way this goes

I dunno about that -- Look at where Sun and Linux were two years ago, and compare that with where they are today. Linux has exploded, creating more mindshare for Unix -- if anything, that has *helped* Sun -- Sun's earnings and stock price both have mushroomed dramatically over the past 2 years...

Linux has helped Sun by causing the Unix market to grow far faster than many so-called experts predicted it would.

Re:Note the amount of revenue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I really think you're over-analyzing this, you goddamned stupid fuck. Haven't you ever gotten a survey a work? Oh, that's right - you use Linux so you probably don't have a job, which is why you want everything to be a hand-out. Well, here's how they work:

*RING*

YOU: IS Can I help you?

CNET: Yes blah blah blah can I speak to the IT Director?

YOU: Hold on ... ["Hey boss another survey!"]

YOUR BOSS: I'm busy jerkin' off, why don't you take it?

YOU: Speaking.

CNET: How many NT, Linux, and NetWare servers do you have?

YOU: 3, 5, and 4.

CNET: Thanks, you fucken loser.

YOU: No problem, ass-nut. Hey, send me a lame free biased magazine.

CNET: Okay!

And that's how they work, you dumb turd! So quit trying to use lame logic for your gay OS!

C'mere, I didn't mean to yell at you. Gimmie a kiss, lover.

Being Linus Torvalds

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux linux linux. Linux! Linux? Linux Linux Linux Linux Linux Linux.

1. Linux
2. Linux
3. Linux

Linux linux linux.

AUGH

[Anonymous Coward]

God dammit! What the FUCK is wrong with you Anti-Windoes Users???

Re:AUGH

[Anonymous Coward]

God dammit! What the FUCK is wrong with you Anti-Windoes Users???

We dislike anybody who cannot spell "windows." By corollary, we dislike any operating system that these people use. Therefore, we dislike Windows. Now run along, kid .. don't you have a "mine sweeper" game to finish up?

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is finally starting to catch up to the feature set offered on Windows NT based on that feature list.

Linux users ought to be butchered

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think that the government should round up all Linux users and put them in camps to be dealt with. People who use open source software are stealing revenue away from real software companies who develop real software. An installation of Linux or FreeBSD or whatever amounts to a direct assault on the corporate bottom line of Microsoft. This shouldn't be tolerated. Attacks on Microsoft are attacks on capitalism, and attacks on capitalism are attacks on America, and the Judeo-Christian God whose country it is. No, this shouldn't be tolerated.

Getting Close To Sundown!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, we're closing in on death for Scottie and those Sun nazis! Now, if we could do the same thing to Oracle, I'll certainly die a peaceful death.

Re:Getting Close To Sundown!

[elflord]

Sure, look at their profits and stock price over the last 5 years. If you're so sure they're dying, I dare you to short them

Disclaimer: the above does not constitute investment advice

Re:Getting Close To Sundown!

[cfish]

Let's hope that Sun set is near!

Linux numbers too high?

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, we have made several Linux purchases from Redhat and Caldera. Both times, we purchased boxed sets only, not a server with hardware. Often we just get a copy and install it many times over.

Most of our computers that run Linux are 95% Linux, 5% windows (usually Windows NT). They are usually purchased with windows (e.g., my new Dell at home) as that is easier and one can go through your corporate purchasing group (often you get pre-configured systems at better prices and it is acceptable to management).

Typically, we get the NT/98 computer then just Load linux, run it and boot to windows when we have to (once a month or so).

Except for a few dedicated boxes that were purchased with Linux, all of these boxes would be tracked as WINDOWS servers or workstations.

my 2 cents....

Linux vs. Windows? I'm holding out...

[Anonymous Coward]

I own both Linux and Windows. I have Linux installed on three PC's (Mandrake 6.x), and Windows installed on two. (I actually have three physical PC's, but two are dual-boot.) I like Microsoft Office and a bunch of the other applications that sell for Windows, and I really like how most of them conform to a common GUI. (I can't say that it's the most beautiful GUI in the world - Enlightenment kicks it all over the place in that department - but it's consistent for the most part.) Some of the development stuff is not bad, though annoying at times. (You know, those 3 1/2-GL's like VC++.) Java SDK is released for Windows first. My NT Workstation at work has only crashed once. Linux rocks. It's the most stable thing I've ever played with - I've only crashed it twice, and both times it was from doing things that a HOWTO warned me might crash it. I use it as a file server/internet gateway/DNS. X-Windows is pretty darn cool if you get the right window manager (I especially like how I can make up my OWN graphics modes), but the applications still have a small way to go before they're consistent enough and plentiful enough for average-joe-user - though Gnome and KDE (and others) are working like dogs to get the desktop up to par. (Most of it has to do with appealing to the average user rather than the geek.) I say "up to par" because - well, because Gnumeric is still on release 0.3x, according to what I read last. The verdict, for me? I'll do what each does best at the time, learn them both, and see who comes out on top. I don't see a point to rallying behind one of them, or polarizing my opinion. Personally, I'd like to see Linux win, and see the OS market become completely GPL, and have Microsoft make its money on applications, which it actually does very, very well. (Please, let's not bring up incidents. Excel 2000 and the rest are really very nice.) Just my $0.02.

#2 has a niche?

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: What do you call a market where the #2 supplier is a "niche" supplier?
A: A monopoly.

Actually, the direction Microsoft is going, a few years from now they won't be on the list.

Re:Linux Grows/MS Shoots Itself in the Foot

[Anonymous Coward]

Or WordNotThatBuggy.

YOU SHUT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem... In case you hadn't noticed: Ms-WinNT has made no progress against 'nix, either. Does it not indicate to you that perhaps something's in the air when NT was gaining ground so rapidly, and now it's ground to a virtual halt? Hello?

Why do you say these things, when you know that they are against NT? If you don't have anything good to say about NT, I'd advise you to keep your f*cking mouth shut. Lie about the numbers all you want. The free software movement hasn't killed off real software by a long shot. Linux zealots make me want to puke.

Re:NT 2000 and Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt Linux will eclipse NT anytime soon. Let's face it not even sysadmins like to use vi anymore. That's the main reason people prefer NT. It has actually changed over the last 20 years unlike Unix.

It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it, we make a better product for less. Too bad for Microsoft Buggy Whips Inc.

Re:It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thing that we won't have to listen to Linux shills such as yourself once we're done with the camps. Hear this: in the new, moral world, Linux will not be allowed. Only Windows and other operating systems that have the blessing of the Almighty shall be permitted. Linux is not a moral operating system, and neither are its users. Your days of using Linux are numbered. And if you don't stop attacking Microsoft and vocally expressing your Linux preferences, well .. let's not talk about that.

Re:It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please take a economics class, or at least look in a dictionary before posting about "capitalism"; in otherwords, hit self with cluestick... HARD. Capitalism is NOT about "making money". It is an economic system that is based on the concept of private ownership. Means of production/distribution are owned by individuals and operated for profit. Note however that profit does not necessarily mean money. Yes, Linux isn't capitalism (nor any other economic theory), and it doesn't make money. However, it is a product, and people/organizations do profit from selling it or products/services based around it.

Re:It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Means of production/distribution are owned by individuals and operated for profit.

This is what I meant, though I was admittedly a little terse. And my point is that the Linux companies are not terribly succesful to date when it comes to finding good business strategies.

However, it is a product, and people/organizations do profit from selling it or products/services based around it.

Well this is precisely the kind of thing I'm referring to when I say "Linux doesn't make money". Can you name a profitable business operation that makes most of its money by selling products and services based around Linux ?

Re:It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[elflord]

Capitalism is about making money, and Linux doesn't do that. Sorry to debunk your "Linux is capitalism at its best" fantasy.

Re:It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[elflord]

Linux makes money for me.

It might save money for you, but my point is that it doesn't make money for the companies associated with it. Microsoft could give away their operating systems and products, and that would also "make money for you", but they'd hardly be effective capitalists because of it.

Haven't you noticed that we are transitioning from a manufacturing based economy to a service based one?

Yes, this is because manufacturing is expensive. However, software development has nothing ( or almost nothing ) to do with manufacturing. The commercial software industry is about creating intellectual assets and capitalising on those assets via licensing schemes. Capitalising on ones assets is at the heart of capitalism ( duh! ) and is the most effective way to make money ( who makes more than investment bankers and stock market gurus ? ) And the software industry is booming. Take a look at MSFT's earnings chart if you have any doubts about this.

Sorry to debunk your 'Linux is socialism' fantasy,

I never said Linux was socialist. But it does embody many of the ideals of Marxism.

Each gives according to his ability and takes according to his needs

Still, I don't like to say "Linux is communist", because a lot of ignorant American's immediately assume that this means that the Linux community is Stalinist or Maoist, or that the Linux community are a bunch of dirty hippies. As a member and contributor of this community, I find both insinuations offensive.

but Linux is not at all incompatible with making money.

Can you substantiate this by naming a Linux company that has been sustaining substantial operating profits over the last two or more years ?

Re:It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[elflord]

I think it is too soon to say that for sure.

At least at present, it doesn't appear to be making money. I'll remind you that when Microsoft were as old as Redhat ( 6yrs ), they'd already won the DOS contract with IBM.

That depends. Microsoft gives away a lot of things as loss leaders and to get people locked in.
...
Giving things away isn't necessarily incompatible with capitalism.

This is a very bad example. Attempting to "lock people in" is attempting to undermine the free market. While profitable, this goes against the idea of free market capitalism. Destroy the free market and you destroy capitalism as we know it.

That has been the primary model for the past few years, but that doesn't necessa rily mean that is the only way for things to work, or that it will work forever.

can you suggest another model ? As someone who is "strongly anti-socialist", I would hope that your model doesn't come wrapped in anti-property neo Marxist rhetoric.

Unfortunately, it seems that Microsoft has been pulling out those big earnings largely by their ability to destroy markets and gobble them up.

OK, admittedly that wasn't the best example, because MS's profits are partly due to some fairly non-ideal markets ( desktop OSs ). However, there are proprietary software copmanies that bring in earnings substantially larger than all the "free software companies" put together. For example, Novell, Id Software, Adobe and Oracle corp. There are also several companies that sell "solutions" that are in part proprietary software, such as Sun Microsystems ( who have been astronomically succesful ), SAP, IBM, etc. Out of these, at least IBM and MSFT are Dow 30 companies, and ORCL are fortune-100. It seems clear that overall, proprietary software does bring in large amounts of money.

The fact that profits go up and down, and some businesses come and go is orthogonal to my point -- that proprietary software brings in money, big money.

more than you can say that no Linux company will make substantial profits over the next two years.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that no Linux company will turn profit. I believe for example that Linuxcare and VA could make some money. VA actually have a decent revenue source, while redhat rely on tiny little $50- box sets for their income.

What I see as the big problem is this -- no one is going to make money by developing for Linux, because the company are paying for the creation of assets that they do not own. I see this as an economic disincentive for companies such as Redhat to pay for Linux development. I don't believe Redhat's idea of funding GNOME development makes good business sense, and I don't think it is sustainable ( though making modest donations to the projects is a different matter. )

The problem is that the paradigm whereby you don't pay developers is hardly one which is going to attract developers to the LInux platform.

Re:It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[SoftwareJanitor]

Linux makes money for me. I save money by not buying Microsoft's products, and that allows me to undercut the prices that other people charge for doing software development work. A penny saved is a penny earned. While Linux itself may not directly make that much money, services, books, and consulting related to it is a quickly growing market. Haven't you noticed that we are transitioning from a manufacturing based economy to a service based one?

Sorry to debunk your 'Linux is socialism' fantasy, but Linux is not at all incompatible with making money.

Re:It's called "capitalism". Get used to it.

[SoftwareJanitor]

It might save money for you, but my point is that it doesn't make money for the companies associated with it.

I think it is too soon to say that for sure.

Microsoft could give away their operating systems and products, and that would also "make money for you", but they'd hardly be effective capitalists because of it.

That depends. Microsoft gives away a lot of things as loss leaders and to get people locked in. They don't always expect to profit from that directly, or to see returns right away even when they do expect to profit directly. Giving things away isn't necessarily incompatible with capitalism.

Yes, this is because manufacturing is expensive. However, software development has nothing ( or almost nothing ) to do with manufacturing. The commercial software industry is about creating intellectual assets and capitalising on those assets via licensing schemes.

That has been the primary model for the past few years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that is the only way for things to work, or that it will work forever.

Capitalising on ones assets is at the heart of capitalism ( duh! ) and is the most effective way to make money ( who makes more than investment bankers and stock market gurus ? ) And the software industry is booming. Take a look at MSFT's earnings chart if you have any doubts about this.

Unfortunately, it seems that Microsoft has been pulling out those big earnings largely by their ability to destroy markets and gobble them up. There is only so long that they can do that before they run a real danger of irritating so many competitors and customers that they either find themselves under government scrutiny, driving large coalitions of their competitors together or formenting a full scale revolt amongst their customers.

Microsoft is one of the few software companies that has been able to consistantly turn huge profit numbers. Many of the other large software companies have had much more spotty track records.

IBM had huge earnings on mainframe hardware in the 70's and early 80's until the market changed. In a very short period of time they went from making billions to losing billions in a quarter. No matter what company you are talking about, or what industry, those that aren't prepared when the market changes will have a hard time reinventing themselves. IBM seems to be well on their way to doing that, but it wasn't easy for them.

I never said Linux was socialist. But it does embody many of the ideals of Marxism.

It may appear that way, but I believe that is more of a side effect than a core philosophy when it comes to Linux.

Still, I don't like to say "Linux is communist", because a lot of ignorant American's immediately assume that this means that the Linux community is Stalinist or Maoist, or that the Linux community are a bunch of dirty hippies.

Unfortunately, not everyone seems to be able to excercise your self restraint.

As a member and contributor of this community, I find both insinuations offensive.

As do I, being rather strongly anti-socialist.

Can you substantiate this by naming a Linux company that has been sustaining substantial operating profits over the last two or more years ?

No more than you can say that no Linux company will make substantial profits over the next two years. About the only companies we know anything about the finances of are Red Hat and VA. We are just starting to hear anything about Caldera and LinuxCare's financials now that they are going to IPO. Just about every other company (SuSE, MandrakeSoft, Walnut Creek, etc) are privately held. While I don't know, I'd suspect that at least some of those companies are profitable.

Re:Nuff said

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't work in a corporate environment, do you. Whay the fsck would GM buy 1 cc of Linux and install on thousands of machines. Even counting they could dupe the CD, it is cheaper to let the THOUSANDS of SEPARATE IT departments each buy their own copy. Hell it is so inexpensive, they ALL probably bought several different distros. OR is some schmuck at GM going to schlep to the offices in Brazil, Tokyo and Detroit wielding GM's ONE cc of Debian. THINK PEOPLE!

NT users take it in the ass

[Anonymous Coward]

.. in more ways than one.

So there.

Re:Linux machines could be lower than indicated, t

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then you probably are not "typical". Most people don't buy that many versions of the same operating system (especially long outofdate versions like RH4). I myself have been using Linux since 93, and I only bought Redhat 4.1 once to see what it was like. After that I got a cable modem and have downloaded it ever since.

Hi there.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the Wisdom Man. I'd rather stay with Windows mainly because I have all of my works saved in Windows, and if I switch to Linux and delete the Windoes Partition, then I'll lose all of my work! You see, I don't feel confortable downloading or buying Linux, and you guys out there with such geneiouses minds of their owns that have valuable time reading the instructions that are plain too thick and obviously a waste of my hobbie time. And I'll lose even more or possible all of my work if I try to install Linux on to my computer and screw up the entire hard drive partition, and have to make me format it. Look at the point of this, I'm not taking any risk of it, espacially when my parents tell me not to get any other OS there. I don't hate Linux, or Windows. Personally I think that both operating system sucks in such way that Windows 98 is painfully slow on my 400mhz computer. But I can't just wait until I either OpenBSD or FreeBSD on my computer, but it isn't popular just like Linux&WindoesNT now and these days. I can't wait until the MacOS X to come out. At least it doesn't have lame mascot like Linux has(actually I know what the name of the pinguin is). Now a question, how did people get intreasted in Linux that it was rapidly raising all in just one year? Is it possible that it would make it to the Guniss(sorry for the spelling) World book of records as the most fastest selling Operating System? And is it possible that some day MSWindows will die of obsolete just like what happend with the 3.5 inch floppies? According to my conclusion, whenever I see a new OS from Microsoft comeout, it always seem to have problems with people liking Linux and hoping that somthing wrong would go wrong with MS's products? Or is it all the luck Linux users have against Microsoft that 97% would come true?

Re:Hi there.

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah blah blah people judging my english, like people think I was trolling around like I give a fuck!

Re:Hi there.

[SoftwareJanitor]

Oh my god. I certainly hope this was a troll. I also certainly hope that if not, english is the poster's second or third language not their primary one. I couldn't decide whether to laugh because someone was doing such an incredible job of channeling Forest Gump or feel sorry that someone could not only be so blindly clueless but also apparently unwilling to take the time to learn or do any research.

GNU is Not Unix

[Anonymous Coward]

you mispelled with "useful".

Re:Keep in mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Managed to beat [sales]"...

Linux is not intended to beat sales... It is actually beating by unstoppable number growth.

NT is stagnating... at best. In fact, it's recessing.

Micro$oft era is over. Now the time has come for
REAL fun, without Micro$oft crap.

Re:But is anyone making any PROFIT ?????

[Anonymous Coward]

I am far right and I shit on your head.

Using linux and proud.

Re:Oxymoron

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said it was a complete rewrite? It's pretty much just NT with the 98 desktop, bug-for-bug, and somenew admin tools, and a directory system.

Re:Go NT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your damn right! Linux has a lame mascot. And I hate that gay pinguin too.

Re:Unix killer

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to remember it's also more of a HR thing.

Unix administrators are more likely to be able to administer a linux box than NT admins are.

Therefore, for a company, it is more efficient to switch from Unix to Linux. Otherwise, they get hosed with downtime and staff training time.

Of course, this might be lessened in a company with mixed NT/Unix boxes, where there are Unix experts that can convert the NT addicts. But then again, if the company is this big, an NT->Linux change would be a major overhaul.

One thing that RedHat and friends might want to look into is migration tools. You know, record all configuration info from the NT box, and set up a matching configuration under Linux. And while at it, print out all the man pages for everything that was installed so the admins can get a clue. (I apologize if there are tools like this out there already)

AC

what my dick ?

[Anonymous Coward]

My clito is less than 1", but be sure I get much more pleasure with it than you and you useless 6"+ piece of meat.

Linux numbers are very misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that the large majority of Linux 'sales' are to kids (like Slashdot readers) who just use it to play around with at home. At the same time, I don't know too many home users who buy NT. Most borrow it from work. Just because the sales numbers re high, don't mean it's being used in a professional capacity. Heck, I even bought several copies of Linux, concluded that it was junk, and pitched the CD's.

Re:NT market share stayed the same, linux up 92%..

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, the marketting campaign is already in full swing, and it hasn't even been released yet. When I was down in NYC this past weekend, posters declaring "Windows 2000 is coming" were all over the mass transit system. I kept wishing I had a can of red spray paint so I could add the word "REPENT" to the posters ;-).

I was standing in the crowd 3 blocks from time square on new years holding a sign which said "Repent Install Linux"

Jeff

Re:Unix killer

[Anonymous Coward]

Note Microsoft has a migration kit for just about any platform you can imagine. I would hope that RedHat is looking into something like this.

Or if not a migration kit, somebody cash out their options and pay somebody to get NTFS working read-write. (Microsoft is doing this for the NetWare FS, and the contractor is porting it to Linux for free.)

Re:Nuff said

[Anonymous Coward]

...conveniently ignoring those bits that would undermind your own rantings...

Besides, NT5 unit sales will just be lumped together with NT4 sales just like with RH5 vs RH6.

Re:No growth of NT market share though...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm retarded. I love BM.

Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Asking for his business card, it is interesting to note that the company he works for is Bell Atlantic! And I'm sure that they are quite larger than your normal networking situation.

The gentleman to which you refer has been identified and relieved of employment. I would like to thank you for bringing this situation to our attention. The use of Linux in a corporate environment is clearly unacceptable; the stability that it has brought cannot make up for the snottiness of this employee and his irresponsible, juvenile, boat-rocking.

Howie Feltersnatch
Chief Executive Officer
Bell Atlantic Corporation

Re:Thank you

[nevets]

Cute, but no cigar!

It was not just one employee that did this, it was several. I even asked him if I can report this to the press, and he had no problems with it. Of course his identity will remain anonymous.

It would have been more believable if you signed in as a real user and did it as a lower level manager. I'm sure the CEO of Bell Atlantic has more things to do then to read /.

Steven Rostedt

Re:Linux sales only

[Anonymous Coward]

NT Workstation is >$50 for a student at any college bookstore.

win2000

[Anonymous Coward]

well, people keep saying Linux can do essentialy what nt4 can do (well it can't be a domain master but its got most everything else.) But what about 2000? Will people ditch linux becuase it interfears with cool things 200 can do?

Another NT box bites the dust.

[Anonymous Coward]

Today we replaced our PDC with a samba box. We now run only 2 NT 4.0 servers (running coldfusion and soon to be assimilated) vs the 15 - 20 linux boxen and 3 BSD servers that are about to be switched to linux. In about 6 months we are going to remove Windows from all but 3 or so of our workstations (11 total). We now only use NT for webservers.

Hmmm... coldfusion for linux is in beta. Then again we could just use the beta. After all, even in beta linux is far more stable then NT. Nah, as long as we try not to breathe too hard on the NT servers they might hold over until its ready.

IDG, please keep in mind that this anonymous coward has never heard of you, and will remain anonymous to you. You don't know much about computers, therefor you are useless to me in my field.

Netware still rocks your lame ass--bahahhaah

[Anonymous Coward]

Netware is an old piece of shit.

Re:Linux sales only

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing startup with public. Red Hat is not a tiny startup company anymore. It was founded six years ago. And Linux isn't a brand new OS either. It's not much younger than Windows NT, in fact.

Re:Predictions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your full of Sh*t. I hope macOS rules all. And I hope htye beat Linux too.

Windows NT

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I think NT is the best damn OS out there. Linux is too buggy (mostly KDE). Watch next year's stats, NT will be even bigger due to the fact that 2000 will be shipped and lots of people will buy it. GO Windows NT!!! YOU'RE THE BEST!!!!!

Re:Windows NT

[Anonymous Coward]

Your damn right WinNT will be #1! Don't have other people get their IBM drugged by Linux. I think that I was using Windows my whole life and when ever I get connected to the internet, I see other people on IRC using another operating system using Linux. Which I never heard of about 3 years ago until it was sold out faster then the Nintendo 64s. Now and these days people think that the lame pinguin would demminate all the large computer networks like WallStreets, Coral, and other private radio station.Wirh me I could never get Linux on to my computer.. NEVER*(&^%$#(&*^%#@(*^&% In my prediction, if MacOS comes out, will it be the future OS instead of Linux?

Re:It is interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Show the difference! Explain the importance! They don't have interest in knowing the difference at a code level, nor need to. But we have something different, something better, we can and should show it as such. Why change what Linux is to match what NT is? What point then is there to move from NT?

I think that dmg (despite his offensive approach) has a valid point. The fundamental problem in corporations is something called the "Peter Principle", where people are promoted to their level of incompetance.

Corporate IT bosses are making technology decisions based on marketing materials, heresay, the latest "Gartner" research, what their buddies at the golf club say, Mindcraft benchmarks, etc etc etc.

Linux does not have to go the TLA BS approach, but a few neat slogans couldn't hurt.

I can see a commercial, Billy Boy ranting and raving about active this, and asp, and innovation etc etc etc. He is squashed by a giant Linux distribution (e.g. RedHat, SuSE whatever) and the voiceover says "Linux. When uptime matters."

I really think the key marketing backlash would be to use the "ease of use" thing against them.

You know, "Not everything worth doing is easy" etc etc etc.

One thing is true, Linux does deserve better marketing.

Within and realm of the dying Sun.

[Anonymous Coward]

^^^ Yes we are!

Re:I know they're not talking about desktops

[Anonymous Coward]

Point taken However with all the hype that Linux has been getting I put it to you that 1 in 10 of those figures relate to lets have a look users and see if its really any good. Its OK lets go back to NT or NOVELL. As every purchase of NT or NOVELL really gets used their figures are at least real. Don't get me wrong in this as I am an network administrator that runs Novell NT and Linux. Horses for courses I say, So use the NOS that does the best job and don't make it do what it can't. Novell is still the best NOS for admin and security. Linux comes in second on security but last on admin equal to NT. NT comes in last on security and reliablity (Uptime).

It was a joke, you idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

see subject

Re:Predictions...

[Anonymous Coward]

He said "not just the server market".

Re:Yup, Red Hat mentioned the market devastation.

[Anonymous Coward]

A few pounds... of flesh!

But is anyone making any PROFIT ?????

[Anonymous Coward]

This may or may not improve the image of Linux amongst the CEOs and other "technologists who matter" however I have a few reservations.

As a widely acknowledged expert in marketing, and coming from an extremely hardcore technical background (Ex NT admin and VBA developer) there is something about this which does not "smell right".

I have previously contributed to this forum with my free "open source" marketing advice, only to be flamed to pieces and accused of being a "troll" by the long-haired left wing pseudo-intellectual open-source Linux zealots. But I keep coming back. This is because Linux deserves better marketing.

Linux's marketing strategy so far has been inadequate. The reason Linux is so slow to penetrate the corporate IT infrastructure is that the zealots who are early adopters have made no effort to describe Linux in "marketing friendly" terms.

You have to put yourself into the shoes of the techno-clueless PHB who reads GartnerWeb all day long, and throw him a few buzzword bones to chew on.

It is ACRONYMS and not TECHNOLOGY that is of prime importance when selling to the corporate server sector. When oh when will the long-haired Linux zealots produce some CEO-Friendly TLA's and FLA's.

Microsoft continues to develop acronyms well in advance of actual technology witness the astounding success of its SOAP technology.

Until Linux develops a whole new set of acronyms, with a "linux-branded prefix" (Microsoft has "Active" everything, what does Linux have?) It will NEVER make inroads into the corporate server b2b, b2c and c2b e-commerce space.

Do the Linux zealots not understand the concepts of leverage, synergy and a new paradigm ?

No wonder Linux lags behind NT in the all-important server market.

Finally if Linux cannot compete with Microsofts ever more powerful technologies, they should consider licensing them from Microsoft.

Once again my "open source" marketing advice is free.

Feel free to flame away. I have come to expect it from the lunatic socialistic left wing long-haired body-pierced Liunx brigade (most of whom have never worn a suit and tie in their lives) and nothing you can say will change my mind.

dmg

Re:But is anyone making any PROFIT ?????

[JohnKatz]

"Microsoft continues to develop acronyms well in advance of actual technology witness the astounding success of its SOAP technology" Yep. If you want to buy BULLSHIT and HYPE then you know where to get it. If your boss buys in to buzzwords and hype then he should get burnt and stuck with the lesser prodect. Linux doesn't need people like that. What could help linux out is people with HALF A CLUE. People who know what they are getting in to. Not PHB who read the linux was cool in PCmag.

"Finally if Linux cannot compete with Microsofts ever more powerful technologies, they should consider licensing them from Microsoft." HAHAHAHA. Thats funny as hell. So you think that "Linux" is one company or one thing right? It's clear that you have NFC what you are talking about. Linux doesnt need corporate IT to live. "All it needs is the "lunatic socialistic left wing long-haired body-pierced Liunx" hackers that made it what it is today. They don't use it/make it for it's market share...who really gives a shit about that. I use linux becasue i FEEL its a better system. I don't need some clueless, hyped up on buzzwords suit like your self to tell me what I think is the better system.

"Feel free to flame away. I have come to..." heh, if all your posts are a fucked up as this one then i see why you always get flamed.

Linux Numbers Hold Up Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Most corporations already have an NT site license so they buy a Linux installed server as its cheaper, nuke Linux then install their own copy of NT.

Isn't it true that in MOST cases the HW manufacturers are giving no discount for Linux installed instead of NT? This is Dell's practice.

Secondly, you must not have read the article. It shows that Linux growth came NOT at the expense of NT sales, but at the expense of everyone else. NT market share was flat. There is therefore no way your argument holds any water.

Thirdly, I'll venture a guess and say that the market share lost by Unix to Linux is directly related to the cost of the hardware. Linux runs on cheap intel stuff -- even fossil hardware -- whereas most Unix runs on much more expensive iron(MIPS, Alpha, SPARC).

Lastly, there is NO means for measuring the number of legacy servers onto which Linux has been installed -- which represents a diminishing install base for everyone else. In my main client's shop they have an ancient box now running Linux and doing a great job for them. It will never run any other OS again, and if/when Netware 4.x is no longer up to the task their main servers will be moved to Linux as well because it is free.

Sure, that company you mention will have an NT site license -- but they'll still have the hardware it USED to run on, too -- and when the NT's moved to the new hardware, in many cases Linux will be moved onto the old stuff.

All of which means: The Linux numbers hold up well.

Re:Linux Numbers Hold Up Well

[LRJ]

this is why I build my own boxes. I can build any system sold by any of the major HW supplies for at least 30% of their cost - in many cases 50% less.

Re:Linux Numbers Hold Up Well

[Masked Marauder]

Too damned true. That is one reason why MS is not too worried about rising Linux usage. As long they have their exclusive distribution contracts with the hardware suppliers, the customer pays for Windows whether they use it or not. If the user runs Linux instead of Windows/NT, it just means less customer complaints to handle and is probably reflected as an increased profit margin: less cost for the same sales.

Re:NT market share stayed the same, linux up 92%..

[Gleef]

HomerJ asks:

What does this mean though?

Keep in mind we're talking about percentage of sales during the year, it says nothing about whether these are new servers or replacing the OS on existing servers. Also keep in mind that all the Linux copies that didn't involve sales are ignored by this study.

What it looks like it means to me is that:
* Microsoft failed in its goal to sell substantially more copies of NT
* Linux increased in distribution at the expense of Netware and the Commercial Unixes

I think the real test of linux vs. NT marketshare will be this year. Linux has the backing of most companies now, and Windows2000 is soposed to be NT done right.

I think you're right as far as 2000 being a critical year for these numbers. From what little I've seen about Windows 2000 it's the same crap with a different number (and much larger), but it certainly will be marketed as the best thing since sliced bread.

In fact, the marketting campaign is already in full swing, and it hasn't even been released yet. When I was down in NYC this past weekend, posters declaring "Windows 2000 is coming" were all over the mass transit system. I kept wishing I had a can of red spray paint so I could add the word "REPENT" to the posters ;-).

----

Re:Linux sales only

[whoop]

It's interesting how these articles always come to boil things down to the amount of money spent/made.

"Microsoft makes more money before the morning coffee break every day of the year" than all the purveyors of Linux made in the entire year, Kusnetzky said. [Kusnetzky is an IDC analyst]

Look at that statement. One company charges anywhere from several hundred dollars for what, a 10 user license?, to many, many thousands for much larger user licenses. You want to add an email server, ok, chuck up another $50,000 (;)). Then the Linux market consists of $50-100 packages with varying amounts of support down to less than one hour's download of an ISO and $1.50-2.00 cheap CDs. All of which have no limit on the number of users or even the number of servers you put the software on (not to mention unlimited uptime)! So, yes, Microsoft can make more money during a coffee break than Linux, but only because they charge so damned much and you get so little.

Sales aren't the best way of judging dominance in this new market, and it will always be a stumbling block for us.

It is interesting

[oGMo]

Here we have a dilemma, or so it seems. On one side, we have "Linux deserves better marketing". We as Linux users (for those of us that are, and I'm sure there are those reading this who are not) see this and say "yes, it does... I want to use Linux everywhere I work, because (I enjoy it|it makes my life easier|it's fun|it looks pretty|whatever)".

On the other side, we see "It is the acronyms and not the technology that is of prime importance when selling to the corporate server sector." After all, that is what seems to sell and promote OS XYZ over Linux/unix. Then the hackish nature in us reviles, and we imagine ourselves not working on those things that are of importance, those things that are useful, those things that we should do because they are what need doing, and instead work on glitz, paperclips, and TLA's.

And we are right. On both counts. This is not a dilemma, we do not have to "sell our souls" to the corporate nature as this comment would seem to imply. Do we not understand "a new paradigm"? How is it that we have created a new market, a Free and Open Source market, one totally unheard of, yet one totally successful?

Who is it who is unwilling to change? "and nothing you can say will change my mind" Who flames, who insults; who is set in their ways, who unwilling to create a new market where technology does matter, not TLA's and buzzwords?

I suggest we learn. Not to compromise our ideologies in order to conform to a market, not in order to have higher sales and make more money. I suggest we learn what is best, to write software that doesn't mimic poorly, but does its job the way it should. To come up with a better way to market, but not necessarily the old way, not to compromise what has been worked so hard for to escape.

Our marketing and promotion is working. There is a slow, sure change on a level which others cannot compete by covering bugs with glitz. If this can be improved, if it should be improved, we need to come up with a truly new method that doesn't treat those who simply are not trained in our field as dogs, to be "thrown a few buzzword bones to chew on". How dare we insult people who have merely different interests, and have different knowledge circles and goals than we? They trust the journals and articles they read because they do not have any knowledge in which to judge.

Show the difference! Explain the importance! They don't have interest in knowing the difference at a code level, nor need to. But we have something different, something better, we can and should show it as such. Why change what Linux is to match what NT is? What point then is there to move from NT?

And those who are unwilling to change will, unfortunately for them and for us, be left behind. But it is their choice.

Creative CNET statistics

[Alex Belits]

Since Linux is as much a flavor of Unix as *BSD or Solaris, shouldn't more honest table table be:

OS...........1998...1999
Windows NT.....38.....38
Unix...........35.....40
Netware........23.....19
Other...........4......3

?

Re:Creative CNET statistics

[Cary]

Well, this isn't quite as cut and dried as you have it.

Unix is a trademark. Unix 98 is a specification.

All of those Unix-like OSes except Linux are derived from one or both of the original BSD and SysV code bases. This is what being Unix means in this article and usually on /..

Linux was written from scratch. Therefore, it's not Unix in the sense I described above. It is a Unix-clone I suppose.

Of course your point about any OS which follows a Unix specification being Unix is valid too. It just depends on how you choose to define 'Unix'.

Re:Creative CNET statistics

[Bigbutt]

Thank you. I was going to say the same thing.

Did someone leave the door open. There appears to be anklebiters here somewhere.

Solaris is not Unix
AIX is not Unix
*BSD is not Unix
Linux is not Unix
Irix is not Unix
Ultrix is not Unix

They are *all* Unixlike.

Unix is a specification. They all follow the spec and then "Value Add".

Fscking trolls.

[John]

Re:it's only a matter of time

[gavinhall]

Posted by NJViking:

I agree.

When I upgraded from a Pentium 133 to an AMD K6-II 450, Linux was quite happy and ran just fine
after I put in the new motherboard & chip.

However, I had to completely re-install Windows 98 because it wouldn't even boot.

Of course I had since recompiled the kernel to optimize for the new CPU, but still, Linux kept running like a champ, and Windows 98 failed me.

NJV

Re:its only a matter of time

[pb]

Windows 2000 is not a "formidable challenge" to Unix, just as Windows NT is not a Unix-alternative.

Linux is an alternative Unix, though. :)

Windows 2000 might have fixed some things that were originally broken in Windows. ...and the Start Menu fades in.

All of the big advances consist of reinventing Unix, and attempting to implement open standards.

We'll see how long this takes. Let me know when they really implement libraries, symlinks, file systems, and namespaces decently. (or even the Unix way. :)

Not a flame. Technical replies welcome. Your rights may be different in some states. Offer expires while you wait. Bah Weep Grah Na Weep Ni Ni Bong.

---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Re:its only a matter of time

[pb]

Yeah, people who are comfortable with Windows will try to install something that looks like Windows, that's what they know, it makes sense.

But Microsoft was attempting to break into the enterprise market with NT. I'm sure a lot of people who try to use NT and are dissatisfied with it *might* try using Windows 2000, whereas before they would have switched to Linux.

However, the same problems apply. Windows 2000 is automatically in the "enterprise" market just because the real minimum-decent system is so beefy. And anyone who knows what they're doing will wait for the reviews of the first service pack to do any serious work. Buying the first release of anything Microsoft puts out is generally a waste of time and money, wait for a known stable version.

(the closest they have gotten to that is probably either Windows 3.1, or Windows '95 OSR2 ("the B version"), or Windows NT 3.1/3.51 (not NT4), depending on which Windows you like. Personally I think DOS 3.31 and DOS 5-6.22 were pretty good too, but that's about it.)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Re:numbers seem a little off?

[hawk]

>This would make the MacOS share roughly 4.9 million (just under a
>million per percentage point). Does that seem low to anybody else,
>considering that Apple sold 1.3 million machines last quarter alone?
>I would think Apple's shipment share in 1999 would have been at least
>5-6 millione

That sounds about right (cool, you can invoke vi from within
lynx to edit these . . . much easier than the netscape windows . . .).

Anyway, 1.3/quarter is an annual rate of 5.2. If Apple sales are
rising at all, this appears reasonable--1.2/quarter would be 4.8
a year, and this is higher than that.

hawk

stocks...

[Nate Fox]

buy! buy! buy! :)

-----
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...

Interesting

[jd]

But it's difficult to draw any conclusions. The information is too jumbled and incoherent. Does the 212% refer to 1998-1999 (as the figure was published -in- 1999), or to 1999-2000?

If the former, then what was the percentage rise last year?

There -is- one conclusion that can be drawn. Linux was one of the least-used OS' for server operations, the last time any real figures were published. NT was in the same boat. I forget which order they were in. But, if Linux is now outselling EVERY OTHER UNIX on the market, then (by definition), its standings must change, and relatively quickly, at that.

There is one figure I find a little disturbing - the 92% growth for Linux, overall. This figure has reached or exceeded 100% for the past 4 years. If this figure is accurate, then Linux' exponential growth may be trailing off. It's way too soon for that, if Linux wants Global Domination. It needs to ride the crest for another 4 years, to be secure as the Ultimate Power.

Last, but not least, this =may= be good news, in the longer-term. If people are buying NT in vast quantities, NOW, then they are unlikely to upgrade to Windows 2000 in a hurry. Too expensive to make that kind of move. These figures may, therefore, be good for Microsoft right now, but they might be killers for their sales, later.

Re:Interesting

[DonkPunch]

"...AIX is >> than Linux."

I don't understand -- are you trying to pipe the output of AIX to Linux?

Well, it's a geek site, isn't it? :-)

Re:Interesting

[Score Whore]

But, if Linux is now outselling EVERY OTHER UNIX on the market, then (by definition), its standings must change, and relatively quickly, at that.

It's important to note a couple of facts: the price of admission to, say, AIX is >> than Linux.
And because of this there are probably numerous would be Linux installs that failed to produce the desired result (ie. a company is willing to let a newish admin spend a teensy amount of money attempting to produce an alternative to their $75,000 Sun upgrade, even if the odds of it working out are low.)

We need to keep our hats on and not let these things fuck with our perceptions.

A long rant

[Mars Saxman]

This is an email wrote to someone who doesn't read Slashdot in response to this report. Opinions and punditry abound. Flame me if you must, but I'd like to hear what you think of my predictions.

----------------

Well this is interesting. Linux has passed Novell Netware and all commercial Unices to rank as the #2 best selling server OS in 1999, with 25% of the market. Only Windows NT beats it, with 38% share (same as last year). This is significant because analysts were predicting it would take Linux until 2002 or 2003 to reach the #2 slot.

Analysts expect that, if anything, Linux' numbers are skewed low. Linux sales increased 92% from 1998 to 1999, while average growth was 23%. Furthermore, IDC counts only box sales, not free downloads, and there's no way they can measure situations where a company buys one CD and installs it on dozens of machines.

What makes this even more interesting, however, is the fact that Linux accounts for only $32 million of the $5.7 billion spent on server operating systems in 1999. Windows NT accounts for $1.7 billion. This makes a lot of sense: open source systems destroy licensing revenue opportunities everywhere they go, replacing them with consulting and support revenue opportunities. Marc Ewing has said repeatedly that he doesn't want Red Hat to become a $5 billion/year company; he wants to turn Microsoft into a $50 million/year company. This year's numbers seem to bear that trend out.

It's also interesting that Linux has mainly cannibalized Netware and other Unix sales, all of which dropped from 1998 to 1999, but has not touched Windows NT sales. The only reason NT got a foothold in serverland in the first place was that the commercial Unix vendors were so busy fighting each other (by making their products increasingly incompatible) that the market splintered, thereby eliminating the competitive advantage of the root from which all the unixes were derived.

With Linux, we're seeing the splinters come back together again. Linux can already run on pretty much all the strange RISC boxes that had custom Unices written for them, and in some cases it even runs better than the manufacturer's own Unix did. That's where a lot of the development work on Linux has focused in the last year, too: the big iron multiprocessor tons-of-RAM servers that have to have uptimes measured in years. Linux is actively moving into the high-end Unix space that NT so far hasn't been able to touch.

This is actually a good thing. If Linux can kill of AIX, Irix, HPUX, Tru64, and SCO (all likely possibilities) and forge alliances with Solaris and BSD, the resulting Unix-centred-on-Linux power bloc will account for 40% of the market. Suddenly NT has real competition again. I think that this is, in fact, inevitable, and for simple economic reasons.

A case study: SGI has almost gone under (and still appears likely to) trying to develop its high-end workstations, IRIX operating system, and custom hardware for its custom workstations all at the same time. SGI has made repeated efforts to shed some of these businesses - their 1998/1999 attempt was the "Visual Workstation" line, a series of high-end PCs using SGI buses and graphics hardware on ordinary Intel x86 CPUs. They ran a custom version of WinNT, rather than Irix.

This didn't work for two reasons. NT's not Irix: it can't do what Irix can do, and it can't do it as well. Furthermore, SGI had to hack on NT just to get it to work on their custom boxes. This means they had to get cooperation from Microsoft - always a dangerous situation. Eventually, of course, the venture failed. Microsoft didn't cooperate sufficiently for SGI to make their version of NT work well enough for SGI to be able to sell enough of the boxes to make a profit. And the customers hated it - they were used to Irix, they liked Irix, and they didn't want this "ugly Windows crap" cluttering up their monitor.

SGI has seen the light, albeit belatedly. Instead of depending on Microsoft for NT, and instead of spending millions of their own dollars on Irix (it takes dozens of engineers to maintain a commercial Unix), they are breaking the best features of Irix out into modules and working on integrating them into Linux. They win, because their (very well-designed) workstations will look as great running Linux as they did running Irix, their customers will continue to get all the features they're used to, and they no longer have to bear the strain of developing an OS *and* a line of hardware. Further, they benefit from the development work everyone else is already doing on Linux.

Whether this will rescue them from financial oblivion is another story, but at least they have a chance now. Had they adopted this approach two years ago, they might have been able to save the inertia they built up in the late 80s and early 90s.

The same situation goes for all of the workstation manufacturers. Intel has been developing its x86 line so aggressively that it's hard to economically maintain a speed advantage with a custom RISC chip. This puts the squeeze on non-revenue-generating parts of the business, like the UNIX division. A workstation manufacturer simply can't continue to play the same game and maintain profitability.

Rather than submit to a "partnership of death" with Microsoft, it makes much more sense for them to take the unique features of their Unix they spent so much money developing, merge them into Linux, and continue shipping their hardware - running Linux instead. The simple fact is that operating systems are no longer profitable unless you are Microsoft (and even that is debatable). Everyone who isn't Microsoft benefits much more by de-splintering their Unix effort and standardizing on Linux than they gain by pouring money into a private-label Unix.

Now consider the case of Sun. Their Solaris is the most powerful version of Unix around, and also the only one of the commercial Unices that doesn't look like it's about to die - mainly because NT is a joke in the world Solaris lives in. They seem least likely of all to ally themselves with Linux. Scott McNealy has lambasted Linux as a toy - not without justification, as Solaris handles humongous servers with hundreds of hot-swappable processors, terabytes of RAID storage, and uptime needs measured in years. None of which Linux is particularly good at right now.

Yet I think even Sun will find that they need to ally with Linux or die. That Linux doesn't support Sun's top-end machines is a result of the fact that most of the people hacking on Linux don't own them. Linux performs quite nicely on Sun's lower-end machines - notably their SPARCstations. Furthermore, Linux has been steadily working its way up the line. It's only a matter of time and interest before Linux performs quite as satisfactorily on Sun's massive servers as it does on their little workstations.

While Sun may be able to take on Linus Torvalds and a loose gang of random hackers, that was the battle two years ago. If Sun wants to fight Linux now, they have to add IBM, SGI, Corel, Caldera, and a couple dozen others to the ever-growing mix. Sun can't keep up this fight forever, especially while Microsoft continues nipping at their heels in the workstation market.

Sun, too, will face SGI's crunch. If they're smart, they'll let go of their ego, adopt Linux as an ally, and take on Microsoft together before Solaris suffers the same fate Irix has. There's no reason Solaris and Linux can't coexist, but Sun needs to learn the lessons SGI and IBM have: there is only one enemy in Unix-land, and that's Microsoft.

Now what about the other free Unices, the trio of BSDs? I don't think they face a great threat. They'll continue to be niche OSes focusing on (and excelling in) certain targeted environments. NetBSD will continue to run on every piece of hardware ever built, FreeBSD will continue to kick everyone's butt in PC servers, and OpenBSD will continue to be the #1 choice for security conscious administrators. Meanwhile, Linux will continue its path to world (or at least server) domination. Linux and the BSDs are allies.

This is a path Sun could take, if they wanted to. I believe maintaining Solaris is ultimately a money-losing proposition for Sun, but if they want to try it, they could still reap some of the benefits of a reunified Unix market by writing compatibility wrappers for Solaris and Linux that allow them to run each other's apps, filesystem plugins to crossmount each other's disks, and so on. There's a lot to be gained by encouraging communication between the Unices.

Ultimately, I think the reconsolidation of Unix into a power bloc centred on Linux is somewhat inevitable. Microsoft and Intel have made the traditional workstation company obsolete. The choices are simple: join the Linux revolution, or watch Microsoft steal your customers.

Once that happens, the question becomes significantly different. If we assume current trends continue, within one or two years Linux will represent a share of the server market equal to Microsoft's. In the face of such opposition, we have to ask - can *Microsoft* survive?

It'll be an interesting fight to watch. The desktop market is, of course, quite huge, and Linux hasn't come close to challenging Microsoft's dominance there. But the server market is much more demanding than desktop market, and Unix unquestionably has the edge over NT there. So will Microsoft's deep pockets and consumer-desktop backing be enough to support its fight for acceptance in server-space, or is it as vulnerable to the Linux juggernaut as everything else? And if Unix wins back the servers, will that put Microsoft on the defensive for the desktops?

Ultimately, I think this will be the battle that determines the future of computing for the next decade. Open systems or closed? Profit or freedom? Corporate unification or creative anarchy? It'll be fun to watch.

-Mars

Re:Linux sales only

[Jagged]

than can afford to pick up a $700 of NT Server or $100-$200 for NT Workstation.

You are talking about students here. I don't think they really care how much they are legally supposed to pay for software.

Re:it's only a matter of time

[mikpos]

in this market i people use the office software that came with their
computers...</i>

i people? is that what imac users are called?

sorry, bad joke i know.

Yup, Red Hat mentioned the market devastation.

[Colin Smith]

Linux devastates the value of the OS market. Why on earth pay thousands when you can get something just as good for a few pounds.

Re:But 1 Linux server = 4 NT servers

[Alain Williams]

I think that this is am important point that is often overlooked in the all too simplistic numbers game. How much real work are all of those machines doing ? Answer that and you will see a very different profile -- the trouble is that getting a reasonable sample would be too difficult for the likes of IDG.

huh?

[RelliK]

What the hell are you talking about? Did you even read the article? They counted the number of *sales*, not virtual hosts.

___

Re:Moderate this WAY UP.

[law]

Agreed: well reasoned, and just enough depth to validate his points.

No growth of NT market share though...

[nedron]

One of the interesting data points provided by IDC showed no (that's zero) growth in NT's market share in 1999. I would attribute that in part to Linux cannibalizing NT's market.

Re:No growth of NT market share though...

[nedron]

Then why no growth at all in 1999? NT has grown in percentage of market share in (I believe) every year that IDC has been tracking this information. Why no growth this year? What happened to its sales? Are you saying that they didn't go into the Linux share?

I don't think you got my original point.

As for Linux causing problems in the Unix world, yes I agree to an extent. There will be some consolidation of Unix sales into the Linux realm. But these migrations most likely would have gone to NT. Again, a problem for Microsoft.

(Offtopic) Re:Funny quote from Sun

[buysse]

Sun does stand for Standard UNix, after all ...

Actually, no. It stands for Stanford University Network, since Sun started as a couple of students there who built a machine (the SUN 1) to run BSD Unix. ;)

Disclaimer: my memory is often faulty.

Re:Keep in mind...

[paul.dunne]

Hey! Yeah, that's right! Thanks so much for pointing that out! It fair lifted the scales from my eyes. Any other wisdom you'd condescend to share with us? How about "Keep in mind, after day comes night", or "Keep in mind, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" (hmmm, no, bit TOO wise for us, that; wouldn't want to waste any of your precious wisdom).

In the same spirit, here's one I wrote just now: "Keep in mind, there are too many Windows-using lamers posting these days, and they ALL suck".

Re:Keep in mind...

[paul.dunne]

Yeah, thanks for repeating yourself, I didn't understand you the first time.

Trolling for Jesus (or even Scooby Do) I can cope with; trolling for MS is a bit too much. Go work for Mindcraft or something.

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[jtn]

Why would Sun be screwed? Nobody will make a dent in their well-established heavy iron market, and Solaris is the only OS that will run on 3500/4500/5500/6500 servers, as well as the 10000. Even the 250/450 boxes sell quite well.. Again, Solaris is the OS of choice. I don't see Sun being "screwed" in the short term, all OSes involved here are moving targets; nobody is going to stand still while Linux progresses.

Re:too bad no real tracking

[jtn]

Linux may "run" on a lot of hardware platforms, but there are huge gaps still there, and it would have a tough time replacing existing software running on unsupported or barely supported hardware. Why replace a working Solaris 7/8 install on an Enterprise 6500 with a copy of Linux that barely supports it? Hardly makes sense in the real world.

Re:Sales?

[jtn]

Small point, but important.. Apache does not imply Linux. Apache will run under quite a few operating systems, including oddballs like NT and OS/2, even a Siemens mainframe.

Sales?

[LongShip]

One wonders how many servers are running Linux that weren't counted because there was no sale required. Looking at the latest NetCraft numbers is telling. Microsoft has recently been slowly losing Internet server share to Apache.

Re:Sales?

[um... Lucas]

Everytime MSFT ships an update to their OS, I usually just download the service pack. However, everytime there's a significant update to Redhat, I'll just download the whole CD to have on hand for reference. Does each of my downloads count as a single install?

Don't get too excited about these numbers. A lot of the installs could have been tests... just checking it out because it's free. I've also bought a few distro's... OpenLinux 2.3, Redhat a few times, Debian, etc... Those were all installed on maybe 2 machines...

I'm sure I'm not the only one here that accounted for more "sales" than machines they could have installed it on.

Re:Sales?

[SoftwareJanitor]

However, I've seen many estimates that Linux accounts for at least 1/3 of the Apache installations (some say the total is closer to 50% - and a few say that the percentage is even larger than that). Most people would agree that the number of Apache installations on non-UNIX/Linux OSes is small enough to be nearly insignificant. It is also true that Linux can run a number of other web servers than Apache, including Zeus, Roxen, AOLServer and Netscape Fastrack.

Re:Sales?

[xyz123]

OK, I see that you want a Real CD(TM) to reinstall if your server has an accident, but why wouldn't you burn such a CD yourself. Moreover, even if you decide to buy an "official" distribution, you don't have to buy one CD for each and every server your install in your 100+ server farm. You buy, say, 10 CD's and store them in geographically separate locations in an earthquake and volcano free bunker.

Re:Sales?

[mail11325]

At my site, I bought one copy of RedHat last fall. I just finished my 4th install using that same CD. That's pretty good value for the buck!

Re:The other Linuxes.

[Cary]

Remember that Irix, Solaris et al run on larger
machines. How many NT or Linux boxen does it
take to equal a Sun E3500?

What would be interesting would be the break
down by # of CPUs. Unix would obviously have
a (much?) larger share.

The technical term is "low water mark"

[tilly]

That is the new standard in reliability they are setting.

Cheers,
Ben

not bad...

[maskatron]

...for a free (as in sex) operating system

Linux #2.

[Signal 11]

Still, you have to wonder how they got these numbers... I recall hearing awhile back that UNIX and Linux boxen usually have several (and in some cases several thousand) virtual hosts defined. If they are counting virtual servers instead of "actual" servers... the linux numbers may be vastly inflated.

Not that this isn't good news.. but maybe we should be skeptical about both sides - theirs -and- ours...

Re:Linux #2.

[Aqualung]

Yes grasshopper, but apparently it is rumored that NT can do virtual hosting as well. The zero-growth figure for NT is also encouraging, that much sooner that we'll surpass M$ in server share ;)
----
Dave
Purity Of Essence

Re:Unacceptable.

[Signal 11]

I don't care what you say, I don't care about all this scientific mumbo jumbo or testimony, I still think NT is #1.

NT is #1 because:

1)I use it. Linux therefore sucks because I don't use it.
2)I know it, and if you don't you're an idiot
3)They're lying (of course) or They Would See The Light
4)VA Linux and Redhat had IPOs but they aren't making cash. Microsoft is - hand over fist. Isn't that proof enough of product superiority?
5)Nobody ever got fired for using Microsoft products
6)I can unzip!

So you see, NT must be #1. There is just no other way around it. I use it, and that's enough for me - and because I'm so 31337 it's good enough for you to. If you wanna be 31337 too, u gotta use NT bay-bee.

Re:???

[Signal 11]

Yeah, but we need more information to gauge HOW linux is growing.. or not. All this article does is provide fodder so I can walk into the PHB's office and say "see, told you so"... it doesn't do anything more than that for me...

Stop patting yerself on the back!

[Signal 11]

Stop patting yourself on the back people... the media waffles on this frequently - that is to say they take both sides. Why? It sells more papers! Analysts do this all the time - the studies don't mean anything.

Geeks, of all groups, ought to know that it doesn't matter what the trade magazines, PHBs or legions of analysts (Gartner group anyone?) says - It's whether or not it works. If it works for you, it's good. If it doesn't, it's bad and should be avoided. It's that bloody simple. Linux works for me because it's stable, reasonably fast (except for the filesystem - boo, hiss), and supports most of my hardware.

But linux could very easily NOT be an ideal solution for me.. especially if I: a) needed to guarantee I could leave for vacation and be sure if the server crashed somebody ELSE could fix it, b) have an Adaptec Ultra160 SCSI card (I'm working with them on this mixup) or other incompatible hardware, c) require support for an application that doesn't run under linux, or d) am prevented by policy from doing so.

So get over it people - use what works, avoid what doesn't.. and let the analysts go extort the PHBs for every nickle they have... we know the truth, ain't that enough? Do your job as best you can, and let management figure out how you did it later.

Re:Stop patting yerself on the back!

[binner]

If I had moderator points, I would moderate this up! You should use what is best for your situation, and Signal11 illustrates better than most the reasons why Linux isn't perfect for every situation.

Although I would like to see Linux installed on every machine possible, I have to admit that it has a long way to go. (I don't usually admit this, btw). My negative comments are based on what I saw at work today. People just can't handle point-and-click yet (that's really sad)...

Given time, Linux will become the most stable, flexible, generally usable operating system the world has known (by generally, I mean by the people I work with!). Unfortuanately, that day hasn't come yet!

We have to keep up that momentum that has propelled us this far!

-Ben

Unrealistic numbers

[unicorn]

I'd take those stats with a large grain of salt, personally.

As has been mentioned in several other posts, those numbers discount the downloaded copies of Linux that people grab off the net. I would guess that they also probably discount the $1.99 specials that you can find, on copies of distro's.

On the flip side tho, last year, I bought a copy of SUSE, and a copy of RH for myself. And a copy of RH for my employer. The end result of those sales, is 0 running servers. They were experimented with briefly, then shelved. It's easy to do, when you only pay $20-$40 for the stuff. I doubt there are too many people throwing down $500 for something that they just want to experiment with a little. So I'd guess that there are far fewer copies of NT getting ignored.

Further, there doesn't seem to have been any effort to separate the Linux copies for workstations, and the copies that are actually on "servers". Whereas they seem to imply that the NT numbers don't include NTWS.

are we actually comparing apples to apples here?

[Mike Bridge]

last time i checked, linux only cost $0, so no matter how many copies are sold, linux, itself, has never made anyone, any money. service and such on the other hand.....

Re:Funny quote from Sun

[scrytch]

> Sun does stand for Standard UNix, after all ...

In your little world, perhaps.

Stood for Stanford University Network. Doesn't stand for anything now.

Re:Predictions...

[scrytch]

> I'd regard Linux as being a contender when games were regularly released for Linux at the same time as for Windows

How many games do you see released for AIX, Solaris, or Netware?

Re:So little money

[elflord]

Software is what you support and contribute to (in order to make your hardware more appealing

Unfortunately, the problem with this approach is that it also makes your competitors hardware more appealing unless you go with a restrictive license.

It also suggests there's a lot of savings to be had for the economy by switching to open-source where feasible.

Or maybe it simply says that the Linux companies are all doomed to failure. It's naive to think that development of Linux doesn't cost anything. People contribute their time and time == money. Some of the developers are paid for their time, some aren't. But one thing that's for sure is that the software doesn't just materialise out of nowhere. So I'd question these supposed "savings to the economy".

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[elflord]

If Sun's market share is being gradually eaten from the lower end up, how do you explain their rapid growth in both earnings and stock price over the last few years ? You say that their workstation sales have been dying since 1997, yet they've done well over the last few years. Your post completely ignores the fact that not only are Sun maintaining their income, their income is shooting through the roof.

In response to your claim that powerful PCs will overtake Sun's hardware -- well many UNIX servers are less powerful than today's top of the line x86 hardware. But they still sell. I don't think that the PC will ever push Sun out of the server market.

Re:I know they're not talking about desktops

[elflord]

Don't forget, it's not like money isn't going anywhere. Money always goes somewhere. In the case of someone using NT, that money primarily goes to Microsoft, to Bill Gates and to the stockholders.

No, it doesn't go to Bill Gates and the stock holders ( when was the last time MS issued a dividend ? Hint: when your P/E is over 60, you can't afford to issue a respectable dividend. )

In the case of Linux , it's not clear that money is "freed up" ( hint: the software costs something to develop. The only question is where the resources come from. The software doesn't write itself ). The only thing that's clear is that companies that "do Linux" will have a hard time staying in business unless Linux proves itself to be a viable business propsition

Re:Linux Grows/MS Shoots Itself in the Foot

[elflord]

For enterprise, you need a full office suite. Applixware is the closest Linux has to a decent office suite. Koffice is also just around the corner

Re:Linux sales only

[elflord]

So, yes, Microsoft can make more money during a coffee break than Linux, but only because they charge so damned much and you get so little.

Well you may feel that way, but all the dollars are voting for Microsoft. Even Linux users give Microsoft the dollar vote by purchasing Win-hardware and buying from Windows-only shops.

Sales aren't the best way of judging dominance in this new market,

Agreed. The best way to measure the performance of a company is profits, not sales. On this basis, Linux doesn't even qualify, since no Linux companies are even making a decent profit. Linux might be widely used, but that doesn't alter the fact that Linux companies are performing badly.

Re:what's so great about "capitalism"?

[elflord]

capitalism may be about making money, but Linux isn't. certainly there are many people who want to make money from linux, and i would like to see many of them succeed. i also want to see linux make enough money to support continuing development and improvement, which it obviously is doing.

I agree completely. I am also a fan of Linux and OpenBSD, in fact I actually contribute ( see http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/ and http://independence.seul.org/ )

I'm just fed up with all these naive right wing Americans who pretend that Linux is inherently capitalist ( especially since a lot of them really start to sound like Marxists when you talk to them about intellectual property )

Re:Linux sales only

[elflord]

There just isn't enough long term data to make the kind of analysis you are trying to do.

I'd agree. My point is not that I am sure that Linux isn't profitable, I am just beginning to have doubts. Redhat are 6 years old. IIRC, Microsoft already had DOS 1.0 out the door when they were 6 years old, and I take it that would mean they were in the black, and hardly "tiny" ( they didn't go public till the early 80 btw. And they weren't founded till the mid 70s )

Both Red Hat and VA Linux Systems are not profitable right now due in large part to the fact that both of them are reinvesting huge amounts of their income and capital back into themselves

Sorry, this doesn't wash. Investments/acquisitions don't count as costs for the purpose of reported earnings. Staffing is an operating cost and admittedly it does have a future benefit as does advertising, but they can only "borrow" like this for so long. ( And it's not clear that their "investments" in the development of free software are actually paying off ) However, if you buy something, that isn't counted as an operating cost for financial accounting purposes.

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[elflord]

Yes, it's true that internet and computer stocks have been growing, but Sun's have been surging. And unlike several internet/computer companies whose stocks are driven purely by hype, Sun's are driven by earnings ( their P/E remained more or less constant up until the last year when it jumped ). Sun's financial foundation is more solid than these other companies -- their earnings as well as stock are doing extremely well, indeed better than the rest of the high tech market which is only growing modestly ( especially if you average it out, then look at earnings as opposed to stock prices ) I'm aware that Sun are not the only game in town in the server business, but they are certainly a succesful competitor at this stage.

Re:what's so great about "capitalism"?

[elflord]

Perhaps it would more accurate to use the term "free market" rather than "capitalism" -- Linux *is* free market.

OK, now you are making a lot of sense. Yes, I also believe that Linux is very much "free market". In fact, I'd go so far as to say that open standards are crucial to free/competitive/ideal markets. Closed standards create artificial vendor lock, and in a monopoly ( or collusive oligopoly ) market, they give the monopoly control over prices ( which violates the definition of a free/competitive market )

Rather than being "political", Linux seems to synthesize the more favourable aspects of many political philosophies ( as opposed to the deplorable practices committed in the name of such ideologies ) which probably explains its appeal to people of all political persuaions.

But I'd still be happier if those public Linux companies would start actually making some profits out of Linux.

Re:So little money

[elflord]

With most proprietary software, you pay a per license fee, which means that the underlying cost (time to develop said software) has a strange relationship to the actual monetary value paid for the software.

You speak as though this model is unprecendented in a capitalist economy, but actually, it exists in many other examples. The proprietary software industry is about the creation of intellectual assets, and using those assets to generate income streams. Using assets to generate income streams is not a concept unique to the software industry. You see it in investment, real estate leasing, and a less tangible example, Amway diamonds generate an income stream by virtue of having earned their title.

The economic cost is paid once. The monetary cost is paid repeatedly. This suggests an inefficiency that could potentially be avoided.

The order tin which the transactions occur does not seem terribly relevant. The intellectual asset ( being the software ) has a certain NPV, and that NPV is equal to the size of the income stream that it can generate, which is in turn ( assuming a competitive market ) determined by market forces. In other words, despite the lack of synchronicity between payment and development costs, the software ultimately makes whatever money it's worth ( worth being something determined by market forces ).

The Linux business model seems to be to not pay for the software, but rather, pay for ongoing support.

The problem with this is that it presupposes that developer time has no economic value, because the intellectual assets they create are freely distributed.

by using a weakly related activity to generate money

I don't see how it's "weakly related" in the proprietary case. They are essentially capitalising on their assets through licensing. This would seem to be obviously related to the creation of those assets.

It seems to me that in one case, the cost is overpaid (license fees)

Empirical data would disagree with this assertion. assuming a competitive market, proprietary software is not overly expensive ( for example, games which truly satisfy "free market" axioms are very reasonably priced ). The problems come when we see monopolies and collusive oligopolies. Besides that, the prices are determined by the market.

If it turns out it is underpaid, then maybe the Linux companies are doomed to failure

The existing model for application has some problems simply because Redhat get no competitive advantage from paying free software developers. These developers are relying on donations alone ( the RH contributions are analagous to donations to the "free software community" IMO. Redhat give because of a shared interest, but don't get control of the projects. )

I like your other suggestion -- that they come up with something better. Let's hope so (-;

Re:So little money

[elflord]

Do you disagree that the licensing model is a less direct relationship to the costs of developer time than the co-source model?

Yes. But I am not clear on why they should be related to developer time as opposed to market value of the intellectual assets created. In some cases, it makes sense to pay for developer time ( ie custom business applications sold to one buyer ). In other cases, it doesn't ( end user apps sold to many users. )

Imagine Microsoft being a huge faction of developers accepting bids on co-source to create their software.

This poses several problems : Who would bid, and why ? if you can get the software for nothing after the developer's been paid, why bid in the first place ? This creates a disincentive to bid. You would end up with a downard spiral, and your system would collapse before it began ( which explains why we don't see anything like it in the application software market ). The other problem with your model is this -- it completely ignores the fact that after the developers are done with their time, they have an asset in their hands, and they have every right to control it. Given this, why should they give up control ?

Numbers?

[Chokai]

Question. This was "server" operating systems. Since many Linux distro's are used as both workstations and servers how did IDG determine what the share of the "server" market was? Did they go out and determine that 1.3 million copies were being used as servers? I mean doing it with Windows is easy. You just count up all the NT Server licenses, but Linux sales mostly don't work like that.

I don't know how much to read into this "report", parts of it like many things of this nature sound suspect. Not to be a party pooper....

Most likely NT share includes..

[Axe]

..that ~500 licenses we have for nodes on our site running Linux now..

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[Axe]

..while remaining more robust, modular and customizable OS, and without sacrificing support for less powerful hardware.

On breaking bubbles..

[Axe]

...what I observed, is when the "One big box" approach fails, and the software, you are talking about, is rewritten to be destributed - that other box one buys often is still a Sun. Given that porting lots of code from Linux development boxes, that pop up, replacing NT, to Solaris is often as easy as typing configure/make, that makes a lot of sense...

Re:On breaking bubbles..

[Axe]

like it or not I do not have an opinion on this whatever works is fine - but I found that although the code would work just fine on $500 Intel/AMD box under Linux decision is made for Sun due to MUCH higher reliability of their hardware. So my (very humble) conclusion from what I saw is that proliferation of Linux on cheaper development hardware only facilitates the decision to go for a Sun on the production box (as opposed to when using NT to develop). Good compatibility with LInux is good news for Sun high end hardware. - Some of the boxes always will be big..

Re:On breaking bubbles..

[jimfrost]

...what I observed, is when the "One big box" approach fails, and the software, you are talking about, is rewritten to be destributed - that other box one buys often is still a Sun.

Certainly, especially on the first iteration. (After all, you already have that monster box.) But it isn't always a Sun, and that means eroding market share. And even when it is a cluster of Suns you have to buy quite a lot of them before Sun makes as much money as when you buy a single Starfire.

Smaller boxes are bad for Sun. They're bad because you can buy them from some other vendor, and they're bad because they have smaller profit margins. And, like it or not, smaller and cheaper is the natural progression in this business.

jim frost

Re:too bad no real tracking

[Axe]

No reason indeed. I just type configure/make when running my Linux developed code on our 10000...

NT market share stayed the same, linux up 92%...

[HomerJ]

What does this mean though? Does it mean...

1) people that may have went NT for something went with Linux instead?

or 2) NT users are waiting for Windows2000 and found it pointless to deploy NT4 so late in it's lifespan?

I think the real test of linux vs. NT marketshare will be this year. Linux has the backing of most companies now, and Windows2000 is soposed to be NT done right.

This is where I think linux will do some major catching up in NT markets. NT4 will no be supported(Microsoft will just go "get windows2000" like they did to Win95 users when Win98 was released). They will have to replace NT4 machines with something supported. Do they go with the Windows2000 upgrades at God knows how much money? Or do they try out Linux because it's free and can do the same job for alot less money?

This may very well me the make it or break it year for both Windows2000 and Linux. Be interesting to see how it all turns out this year.

So what happened to the OS counter?

[SurfsUp]

The last time the OS survey at this site was updated was a year ago. What gives? We need real statistics on operating systems in use on web servers. Netcraft shows us how many Appache servers are out there - nearly 60% of all web servers are running appache - and it really seems hard to believe that less than 1/2 of them are running Linux. Which would put Linux tied with Microsoft (all flavors).

Am I wrong about this? I think the number of Linux servers is being serverly underestimated.

Re:So what happened to the OS counter?

[fnurgel]

You are probably right.
Though it makes you wonder if they really need *that* many NT servers to do the same job as any other Unix.
I mean just look at the size of MS' own site, machinewize. Ofcourse they sell alot.

Re:So what happened to the OS counter?

[Leto2]

I think you're cowfusing a "server" with a "webserver" here. While linux sure has a great potential in the webserver market (and Netcraft shows this), the "server" market (aka fileserver or applicationserver or mailserver) is something completely different.

Most companies still have a WinXX desktop environment and the logical choice is Windows NT Server (or whatever 2k spinoff you might prefer). Although I personally like Netware a LOT better.

My choice:
Desktop: Windows
Fileserver: Netware
Webserver/firewall: Unix (I really don't care which one)

Moo!

Ivo

Re:Linux Grows/MS Shoots Itself in the Foot

[SurfsUp]

it's probably smart to realize that StarOffice is only a replacement for MS Office in the home enviroment. It's not even in the same ballpark in an enterprise.

True. For the enterprise you'd probably be better off with Wordperfect. :-)

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[IntlHarvester]

Very well put. I always thought that Sun is going to rue the day that they abandoned the low-end and the desktop. Especially when they wake up and notice that Linux or BSD is running on a significant number of workstations and small servers.

They'll realize that Unix isn't the big boogeyman on the low end that everyone thought it was 5 years ago, and they abandoned a valuable segment of the market. Of course, they could keep moving Solaris up-market, but pretty soon it's mindshare will be about as great as OS/390's (which is not to say that it won't be profitable.)
--

Re:Linux sales only

[IntlHarvester]

*What* server hardware is bundled only with Windows? You might have an argument with preloads on desktops and 'workstations', but I have never seen a server machine that you couldn't order 'bare', or with NetWare.
--

Re:Reliability of software running on dodgy hardwa

[LuckyStarr]

nt will crash even if the hardware is fine!
it crashes because of some combination of
hardware and software. you cant track it down.

NT small biz server crashed completely (with
reinstall neccesary) when a pop3 retreiver was
installed on a self built box. after that
NT was installed on a pre-built compaq box and
ran fine. linux of course likes the self built
box and ran since then. :-)

Note the amount of revenue.

[mjuarez]

Even though Linux accounted for 25% of all server shipments, it accounted for 1 or 2% of the total revenue for operating systems last year. I guess that's where companies like RedHat and VALinux should be aiming... services sold ALONG with their operating system, not selling the system as a whole.

Also, note that IDC's study didn't take into account the thousands of server installations that get done with a single Slackware or RedHat CD. Taking those installations into account, I'm pretty sure Linux edges even NT in market space.

Re:Note the amount of revenue.

[um... Lucas]

Linux is just too hard to count accurately. It's free, for one. Are they counting CD's shipped via CheapBytes? How about CD's included in books? Downloads from official distribution sites? Unofficial sites? That, plus the fact that there's no way that one can gauge exactly for what use the install is being used.

NT is much easier to break down. x Workstation sales vs. y Server sales.

There really is no way to accurately compare the two. If you count units shipped, you have to figure what consitutes a "unit". Maybe just count preloads? No... not unless they track down every consultant that could possibly install linux for a client somewhere....

Numbers are just useless.

Re:Unacceptable.

[bmetzler]

6) I can rpm!

I can program in RPM. It even compiles!!

-Brent

Re:The other Linuxes.

[bmetzler]

It's interesting that the paragraphs below this talk about "Unix" making up about 53% of the revenue ~ 3 billion. What are the systems that are so expensive even though they are only ~0.8 million (15%) of market-share? Sun, DEC, HP, SGI? They must have appalling licence fees.

But they do important and often critical stuff. No one would try to use NT or Linux to do what HP/UX or Solaris or AIX can do. And those who need the high-end OS' are more then willing to pay what they are worth.

It's like comparing pickup trucks to semi-trucks. It'd be foolish to believe that I can buy a semi-truck at pickup truck prices. Indeed it'd even be more foolish to attempt to use a semi-truck for what a pickup truck can do.

More then that, I'll bet that everyone who needs a semi-truck knows that they need a semi-truck and is willing to pay the price for one. We'll never see the market-share of semi-trucks overtaking that of pick-up trucks or any other vehicle class. But to say that that means that the usefulness of semi-trucks is dying out is just plain wrong.

It's the same with OS's. HP/UX does what it does very well. It was no need to be the dominant OS. Also, anyone would be foolish to believe that they can replace their HP/UX server with an NT server. Likewise, I have no plans to replace my NT server with an HP/UX one. They serve 2 completly different markets.

Now, Netware, NT and Linux compete for marketshare. They all have somewhat overlapping uses. That's like comparing sales of Chevy and Ford pickup trucks. I can accept that. And the increasing marketshare of Linux is certain stealing marketshare from something else. But it's something that it competes with. ie, Netware, and NT.

In conclusion, I think it's a fallacy to compare *all* servers in marketshare reports, just as it would be a fallacy to compare all "trucks". I think that comparing marketshare in servers that do similar things is much more valid. For instance, what Netcraft does with web servers.

-Brent

Re:I know they're not talking about desktops

[bmetzler]

"Microsoft makes more money before the morning coffee break every day of the year" than all the purveyors of Linux made in the entire year" Because every NT system has purchased a copy of NT - that's not true with linux.

Don't forget, it's not like money isn't going anywhere. Money always goes somewhere. In the case of someone using NT, that money primarily goes to Microsoft, to Bill Gates and to the stockholders. But in the case of Linux, that money is freed up to go to employees or other people who among other things, work the make the company better. As a result, the money goes to feed many families, instead of just build up Bill's portfolio.

-Brent

Re:NT market share stayed the same, linux up 92%..

[bmetzler]

Linux increased in distribution at the expense of Netware and the Commercial Unixes

People keeping saying this over and over again, that Linux won't hurt NT, but will kill other Unixes, but is this a reasonable assumption? Why would anyone replace their high-end Unix server with Linux? Won't it make more sense that they'd replace their NT e-mail server, file server, web server, and proxy server with Linux?

The fact that NT has been replaced by Linux installations can be documented. But can it be documented that someone using a high-end Unix server has replaced it with Linux?

-Brent

Re:it's only a matter of time

[N1KO]

you are forgeting another large marker. Home computers. in this market i people use the office software that came with their computers, but they spend lots of money on games, joysticks, financial programs, educational programs, etc.

its only a matter of time

[josepha48]

I think that it is only a matter of time that Linux can overtake NT. Not to be a Linux zealot or anything, but the fact that Linux is less expensive it can be a better way to go. The only time I have to fiddle with my Linux system is when I ad new hardware, or upgrade kernel oir a distro upgrade. Though I am working on changing that with some upgrade scripts to automate that.

I keep seeing signe all over the place saying "Windows 2000 is coming, to set a new standard in reliability." Something like that at least. I guess they don't know the reliability that a UNIX box has. Not just Linux, but Solaris, and AIX and FreeBSD. What is this new standard in reliability that Windows 2000 is going to set?

Don't hate me cause I'm beautiful..

send flames > /dev/null

Re:its only a matter of time

[Sloppy]

Actually, I think it's only a matter of time before Linux start dipping back down. As bandwidth increases, more and more people will download Linux instead of buying CDs. Don't get me wrong -- I think companies like Red Hat really do provide some value in support. But they're kidding themselves if they think that's everyone's reason for buying. Sometimes it's just a lot more convenient to have a CD. But as bandwidth increases, that may become less important.

There's also the issues of CDs quickly becoming out-of-date. Will this increase sales (as people buy Linux CDs more often, to keep up) or decrease them (as people stop buying CDs altogether since you have to get updates from the 'Net no matter what)?

The only time I have to fiddle with my Linux system is when I ad new hardware, or upgrade kernel oir a distro upgrade. Though I am working on changing that with some upgrade scripts to automate that.

That sounds like an argument in favor of decreasing Linux sales.

What is this new standard in reliability that Windows 2000 is going to set?

Perhaps there's more than one way to interpret this. Maybe they think they will be able to surpass the amazing "standard of reliability" set by the awe-inspiring Win98SE. Ten years ago, would anyone have ever guessed that consumers would accept such flakiness? New standards indeed! ;-)

---

Re:its only a matter of time

[SoftwareJanitor]

although several articles in magazines have given NT the upper hand in TCO.

Magazines are highly unreliable in such things, as they tend to be influenced by their advertisers' interests. Look at the number of pages of advertising in the magazines in question that are either directly paid for by Microsoft, partially paid for by Microsoft through co-op programs with hardware and 3rd party software vendors or indirectly related to Microsoft orriented hardware and software products from 3rd parties.

I've read a lot of articles like that, and often their rating methods and conclusions are highly suspect. There is often an assumption made that you need the same number of admin staff to admin an equal number of Linux and NT boxes. From my experience that is not true. Linux not only requires less maintenance because it is more reliable, but is more condusive to remote administration and automation of common sysadmin tasks through scripting. Often the assumption that NT doesn't require administrators at all, or that you can just get any idiot off the street and have them administrate your NT boxes for very little money. Frankly, this just doesn't pan out in practice. Regardless of platform, in order to run reliably in the long term, admins need to be at least halfway competent or you will have problems. There is also a misconception that there are a lot more people who are knowledeable about NT than Linux and they work cheaper than UNIX admins. I've found that to be pretty much false as well. There are a lot of people with superficial knowledge of Windows 9x, a fairly large number with superficial knowledge of NT, but it is actually easier to find people who are really capable Linux/UNIX admins than NT. The price for really qualified people is about the same.

One of the most serious errors many of the articles I've seen comparing TCO between Linux and NT is that they use TCO figures for commercial UNIXes (which generally include large vendor licensing and support fees, as well as expensive high end RISC hardware). Frankly it isn't comparing Apples to Apples, as Linux's costs are way lower in licensing and hardware than commercial UNIXes (much lower in licensing than NT and slightly lower in hardware than NT, too, since Linux is typically more lenient in hardware requirements), and for vendor support contracts the cost is fairly comparable on all of the major platforms. The difference is that there is excellent free support for Linux available which is harder to find for commercial OSes. Many companies get by without paying for any commercial Linux support at all. That is hard to do with NT and not something most companies would even contemplate with a commercial UNIX.

Re:its only a matter of time

[SoftwareJanitor]

Your milage is obviously different than mine when it comes to the value of online support. I don't as often post a question on a newsgroup when I run into a problem as I use a service like Deja to search USENET for an answer to someone else's questions. I am almost always successful at that with Linux, and far less often so with NT. I never said that there was no NT help available for free online, it is just a matter of degrees. Also, I have rarely ever needed help with Linux because of a crash, usually its just something that I'd like to figure out, but it is rarely a show stopping situation. It seems I have found myself in a lot more dire straights situations when dealing with Microsoft products.

What it comes down to is that most companies seem to think they need to pay for big service contracts for NT, and most of them are content to only pay for support on Linux on a per-incident basis. They don't do that for no reason. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks the same way.

Re:its only a matter of time

[Malcontent]

Except for the fact that the worst culprits of NT unstability are the service packs and the ODBC drivers you get from MS. Not to mention the forced upgrades of IE which tend to throw your entire machine out of whack. Oh yea good luck finding clueful NT admins too. Most of the ones I know got their MSCE in a week course and got a job soon after.

Re:its only a matter of time

[Malcontent]

The sticker price is not everything but it is important. Hang out at the comp.databases.ms-access for a while and you will eventually see a flame war about oracle and ms-sql. The ms crowd will counter every argument by the oracle people with a variant of this phrase.

Oracle may be better and maybe more scalable but SQL server is cheaper and good enough for what you want it to do.

Guess what Linux is not only better then NT but also cheaper and plenty good enough for what you want to do. I would'nt run ebay on it but it's plenty good for any company with less then a thousand seats or less then a million hits.

Re:its only a matter of time

[lakdjfalkdj]

There are a lot of people with superficial knowledge of Windows 9x, a fairly large number with superficial knowledge of NT, but it is actually easier to find people who are really capable Linux/UNIX admins than NT.

The reason for having more capable Linux/UNIX admins,I think, is because you can't pull any idiot off the street, give them a 3 week MCSE course, and tell them they are now Admins.

I've run into plenty of lame NT admins, simply because they can get something working, and apear they know something. Even though they did a half assed crappy job, they have something. These people would be totally dead in the Linux/UNIX world. You'd get questions like, "uhh what's a command line now?" I'm not dissing NT admins, I am in fact a NT admin. I admin more NT boxes than I do UNIX boxes (Actually I consider myself more of a NT admin than Linux/UNIX admin). This is just my past experience. Also I see a lot of people with 30 workstation LANs saying they're an NT Admin. Which makes NT really show it's "easy of use" because all they have to do is install it, login as Administrator create a share called "Drive C", put all everyone's files in there, and say they're done. Which in any REAL network you'd laugh his ass all the way back to Microsoft for.

Now if this person was a Linux admin for a 30 user LAN and wanted to run samba or NFS, it's slightly more difficult to up and running and you need to know of actually what's going on behind the scene when configuring that.

Only real difference from a Linux/UNIX Admin to your average NT admin is that a NT Admin can fake it to the majority of the Pointy Haired Bosses (Hey I know more about NT than Bill Gates, I got my MCSE Gates doesn't (I've heard that line, shutter, and the Boss BELIVED him)) and he can't with Linux/UNIX. :)

lakdjfalkdj

Re:its only a matter of time

[dirk]

The difference is that there is excellent free support for Linux available which is harder to find for commercial OSes. Many companies get by without paying for any commercial Linux support at all. That is hard to do with NT and not something most companies would even contemplate with a commercial UNIX.

This is something I've never understood as a valid arguement for Linux. Yes, there are newsgroups for Linux, and websites, etc, but there is the same thing for NT. I can go to the MS website and get most of my questions answered. Plus, when it comes down to real support, newsgroups don't really help. I crash (on either platform) and I need to get back up and running ASAP. I don't have time to post to a newsgroup and see if I get an answer. I need an answer NOW, whether it's from MS, Redhat, or some other company I've contracted with. Just because Linux has more newsgroups doesn't mean I can't find free NT help online, and it doesn't help in a bind.

Re:its only a matter of time

[beagle]

The only time I have to fiddle with my Linux system is when I ad new hardware, or upgrade kernel or a distro upgrade.

This is what I like about Linux - you set it up and forget about it. I've got (what's now) a junker (486) machine that's been running Linux since its inception. It serves as the web/email/DNS server for my domain, and serves email for me and several friends. The thing has been up for 38 days, but only went down because my company wanted computers shut down over Y2K New Year's. Before that it had been up for nearly 80 days.

PS I'm still running RHL 4.2. I've got too much stuff installed to be able to install a later rev of the OS. At least it's 2.0.30.

Re:its only a matter of time

[jon_c]

I guess they don't know the reliability that a UNIX box has.

Eh, every OS is crushable. I used to run a NT box for my home server, it BSOD once ,right after I set it up, I never knew why. But yes, I did reboot the bitch about once a month, it didn't exactly need it, but it started getting really slow after a while. I think it could have been this program I wrote that was running, it was my first attempt at COM and I'm pretty sure it was doing something nasty.

But the thing is, all OS have problems. I run FreeBSD for my home server now and it's already crash once. I was running lpmud and it decided to fork() like made. Not exactly a BSOD, but there wasn't much I could do but reboot... btw, I now know how to prevent that.

An ever better example is what happened to yahoo, buy.com, ebay etc.. they all run whatever OS and they all got taken to the hole, it's not the OS's fast so much, just the situation's it can't handle..

This is getting a little ranty.

I think that it is only a matter of time that Linux can overtake NT

A point I haven't heard anyone mention is that for the last year or so Microsoft has been saying Windows NT5/2000 will be out tomorrow so you might want to hold off on more NT 4 boxes. It will be VERY interesting next year to see if Windows 2000 can keep up with Linux's growth.

Not to be a Linux zealot or anything

because you are right? i run linux (suse & redhat), win2k, win98 and freeBSD. it's good to be open minded.

Btw: I run Win2k at home and at work (I work for da' man), it's it crashed on my once, it was REALLY weird I was just moving my mouse around, or something. And the bitch rebooted.... I think it has something to do with my video card driver (for a ATI rage btw), because I get lots off fragments.. links in IE typically don't show up. stuff like that...

-Jon

Re:its only a matter of time

[Kailden]

I think that Microsoft's main stab with Windows 2000 is to get a stronger position in the network server enviroment. They are attempting to transfer thier desktop popularity to the ENTERPRISE server environment....

In other words, they are just now thinking about reliability in the terms of enterprise. Until now, thier main stab has been to target the small business and new start-ups with servers that are similar to thier desktop enviroment.

From my experience, NT is very unreliable...but windows 2000 is a formidable challenge to the unix based systems.

The thing that most lusers overlook is the fact that Linux servers with thier UNIX heritage target enterprise by default...

So linux still has an advantage from the fact that it is enterprise capable and open for development..

and the market is swinging in its favor!

Re:its only a matter of time

[Kailden]

I have used both windows 2000 server and the UNIX systems.

My point is that people who are used to the desktop win nt/95/98/2000 are more likely to install windows 2000 server
and
with W2K, M$ is trying to break into the enterprise market. I don't think they are trying to make an alternative UNIX. Quite the opposite...
They are trying to transfer the success of the desktop into an ENTERPRISE market.

(WINNT broke into the server market in general, but is to unreliable, IMHO, for enterprise serving)

Re:its only a matter of time

[southpolesammy]

"Windows 2000 is coming, to set a new standard in reliability."

Well, if I use Microsoft's past OS performance standards to infer content from that statement, then I believe it means that Win2k will require that you have perfectly reliable hardware and software or even more BSOD's will result.

But then again, at least it's been advertised as being able to boot up faster than ever before...

autoupdate

[josepha48]

Yes and as bandwidth increases and more people download, companies like redhat can offer auto update of embedded systems. Imagine a device running Linux as a web appliance. Imagine you never have to upgrade it cause it can upgrade itself and restart itself when you are not using it. Windows still cannot do that even with NT 2000 or whatever tehy call it, you must still be there to upgrade. Linux you can create upgrade scripts as so many companies do and install scripts so you can have unattended installs. NT still canot do that and probably never will. Peoplw will still buy from Redhat when they want support (or another company).

send flames > /dev/null

That Wonderful Shipped Benchmark

[SlowarisGod]

It is too bad that actually knowing use vs. shipments is almost impossable to quantify.

Re:That Wonderful Shipped Benchmark

[SoftwareJanitor]

Well, it's easy to predict that very few people who pay money for NT Server are doing so just to 'check it out' to satisfy curiosity. So it's safe to say that the sales figures for NT Server reflect it's install base.

Actually, that isn't quite right. There are a substantial number of people who pay money for preloaded NT Server on hardware they purchase to run Linux, Netware or one of the commercial UNIXes. Why? Not because they want to in many cases, although in some it is because NT fails to perform and they end up punting to another choice. Mostly it is because they have no choice. A lot of hardware vendors force feed preloaded NT with every server sale even if the customer is buying Netware, Linux or a commercial UNIX from them -- and many hardware vendors don't offer the option of even getting a non-Microsoft OS installed or shipped with the computer leaving the customer to make that aquisition on their own. Very few vendors offer machines with no OS installed at all (and most of the ones that do only do so on a limited number of models).

So, it's safe to say that Linux sales estimates should be scaled back by a factor of ten to come up with install base numbers.

According to your argument, that should be 'scaled up'. If you 'scale back' numbers it would be the opposite of what you are saying.

As for Linux CDs that come with books, given the sales numbers they are talking, I believe they are not being counted. The number that they quote for 1999 Linux sales appears to only be the retail shrinkwrap box 'official' sales from major distributions like Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE and Mandrake. They don't look like they would contain any of the 'free' CD's on books or magazines or the copies included on cheap CD's like CheapBytes, the InfoMagic CD-ROM sets, etc.

If you could figure out a way to count all the copies of Linux shipped through these sources, the number would probably be staggeringly large, but that isn't what this article was talking about at all.

Re:That Wonderful Shipped Benchmark

[xyz123]

Well, the "problem" is that Linux is very cheap. I also have bought several Linux distributions, some of them from some guy who burns customized distributions on a CD. It's therefore very cheap to try out several distributions.

On the other hand, at our department several Linux computers have been installed from a single Suse CD.

All in all, it's difficult to estimate Linux sales. And who cares anyhow?

Re:That Wonderful Shipped Benchmark

[billybob jr]

You have 30-40 cds but only two computers. Isn't this a 20 times scaling factor in the wrong direction? You are talking about a factor which would say basically that for every copy purchased there are 10 or 20 copies downloaded. Which is probably true. But isn't it more useful to actually count the number of computers with linux installed and running. Counting the number of times cheap bytes sells a cd doesn't make for a good count of what is actually being run.

Re:That Wonderful Shipped Benchmark

[jimbobborg]

Back when I was a consultant, small time companies with 10 or fewer people used high end NT workstations as servers. Were these included in the statistics as well? The other question I had was how many companies used high end PC's and converted them into Linux/SAMBA servers? And what about distros available from places like The Linux Store, or from magazines? A couple of months ago, one of the mags was giving away a distro of TurboLinux Cluster Server. Were those included too?

Re:That Wonderful Shipped Benchmark

[mcrbids]

Huh? Get off it, man!

I bought a Red Hat 6.0 CD from Cheap Bytes. I've set up now 7 systems with that CD, and also copied it and sold about 20-30! (at $12 each).

Quite a few, and it WON'T show on these "shipment" stats...

(Have you ever been to an install-fest?)

Open arse, remove head...

Re:Predictions...

[maroberts]

Yes, but a t least it's not anonymous shit!

:-)

Predictions...

[maroberts]

..it's nice news, and it appears Linux is rocketing nicely up the popularity charts. I'd like to know where Linux stands in the overall OS popularity charts.

With the huge strides in usability which desktops like Gnome and KDE seem to be adding to Linux, and the rapid advance in terms of performance, such that Linux is at least operating in the same ballpark as any other operating system. I'm beginning to believe that Linux has a fighting chance of being the #1 OS everywhere by say Jan 2003. I wouldn't have been confident enoough to say that even a year ago, but Linux as an OS just gets better and better in all fields, not just the server market.

Last time I wrote something about the future I said I'd regard Linux as being a contender when games were regularly released for Linux at the same time as for Windows. Whilst that is not true yet, many companies at least look about producing a Linux version of the software and the time lag appears to be less and less. I'd like to hope that within the next 12 months this becomes more and more true.

Re:Predictions...

[jonathansamuel]

>>huge strides in usability which desktops like Gnome and KDE seem to be adding to Linux

Before you can benefit from Gnome and KDE one must first install X. Easier said than done on many laptops.

Windows installs first time every time on my laptops. I have been struggling to get X installed on my Compusa 128MB/ATI Rage laptop for days. Suse, Turbolinux, Caldera, DragonLinux, they all fail.

Re:Linux sales only

[SoftwareJanitor]

One might also wonder how many of these "servers" are sitting idle on some students desktop.

Probably a lot less than the number of machines counted as NT sales due to preloads that were blasted to install Linux, BSD, Netware or one of the commercial UNIXes. Most of the server grade hardware, and an even larger number of high end desktop and/or deskside boxes that are sold are bundled with Microsoft OSes even when people purchase them to run some other OS. Microsoft counts a lot of sales that aren't the same as installs. Linux sales versus installs are a different matter entirely.

Re:Linux sales only

[SoftwareJanitor]

It may depend on channel, but if you order machines from most of the catalogs, most of the configurations from vendors like Compaq and IBM are available only with NT. You might have more leverage if you are a huge company that buys direct, but most small to mid sized companies buy either from a local dealer, through a catalog or even from the big retail chains like CompUSA. When you buy in those channels your choices are pretty limited.

Re:Linux machines could be lower than indicated, t

[SoftwareJanitor]

I believe the numbers they give only count machines pre-loaded with Linux and 'official' boxed copy sales from the major distributions like Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE and Mandrake. The sales numbers for Linux would be astronomically higher if you counted all of the 'free' copies distributed on books. If you go to a large bookstore like Borders or Barnes & Noble, even in a backwater town like I live in, you will probably find 50 to 60 different books on the shelves that include a CD containing one Linux distribution or another. The cumulative sales of those books probably outnumbers the box copies sold by 2:1. Of the 21 CD's you mention having, how many of them are 'official' boxed versions, and how many of those did you buy in 1999. I bet you are closer to 1 per machines, maybe less.

I bought about 3 or 4 boxed 'official' versions in 1999, but then again, I have at least a dozen Linux boxes.

I also have a CD burner, and I probably have made and distributed at least 20 Linux CD's to friends and coworkers who want to learn Linux in the past few months.

Re:are we actually comparing apples to apples here

[SoftwareJanitor]

That is a misunderstanding of the concept of 'free' software. Software can be 'free' as in freedom of speech and 'free' as in free beer at the same time, or not. Linux is available for free, or you can choose to buy it. Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, Mandrake, etc. all sell it in shrink wrap boxes. People buy that. They are paying for some support as part of that, sure, same goes when people buy a shrink wrap box of other software like NT or Novell. However, when people buy a shrinkwrapped copy of Linux, they are also paying for the convenience of getting a nice shrinkwrapped box with a CD and a manual instead of taking the time to download and burn a copy of the CD and print a copy of the manual themselves.

Re:Unix* is now #1...

[SoftwareJanitor]

So... Unix/Linux now has 40%, passing NT at 38%.

Interesting point. I wonder whether the *BSD's are included in 'UNIX' or in 'other', as they are not officially UNIX branded just like Linux.

Re:Linux sales only

[SoftwareJanitor]

Your views are very shortsighted. There just isn't enough long term data to make the kind of analysis you are trying to do. While none of the (only two) public companies are currently profitable, that hardly means they are 'performing badly'. It is highly unusual for new startup companies to be immediately profitable. Both Red Hat and VA Linux Systems are not profitable right now due in large part to the fact that both of them are reinvesting huge amounts of their income and capital back into themselves through aquiring other companies and products and in expanding their advertising and staffing. That is all an investment in the future that won't show results for a while.

By your logic, when Microsoft was a tiny startup company back in the mid 70's, they weren't even worth looking at. You just can't look at things through such a tiny window and get the whole picture. You have to look at where the company is going in the future and how they are executing on that vision. If on that basis you don't think any of the Linux companies are viable in the long run, then you are certainly entitled to that opinion -- and maybe you might want to buy some long term short positions on their stocks. However, I imagine quite a lot of people felt the same way about Microsoft when they were a tiny startup.

Re:The other Linuxes.

[SoftwareJanitor]

Likewise, I have no plans to replace my NT server with an HP/UX one. They serve 2 completly different markets.

What can your NT server do that an HP/UX server configured with Apache (or Zeus, or Netscape Enterprise or whatever you happen to like), Samba (or one of the similar commercial file/print services for Windows clients), HP OpenMail (or sendmail+pop/imap or Lotus Notes or whatever other mail/groupware server you like) and your choice of RDBMS software (Sybase/Informix/Oracle) can't?

Do they really serve totally different markets? Or are you trying to artifically draw boundaries where they don't technically exist?

Re:Linux Grows/MS Shoots Itself in the Foot

[SoftwareJanitor]

So what features in StarOffice are missing that makes it 'not even in the same ballpark'? I work in an enterprise and I've yet to see anyone using features in MS-Office that aren't in StarOffice. Probably about the only credible argument I've seen against StarOffice is the problems related to proprietary file format issues with MS-Office. If anything my biggest complaint about StarOffice is that it is pretty much just as big and overbloated with whizbang features as MS-Office. For the home market either one is nothing less than gross overkill, but at least the price of StarOffice is a bit more palatable, albiet the price of MS-Office is often hidden by it being force-fed in a preload bundle.

Re:Linux sales only

[SoftwareJanitor]

Red Hat is still a tiny startup in the scheme of things. Until very recently (when the venture capital started rolling in) they only had a couple dozen employees. In the corporate world six years is a short period of time. Microsoft has been in business for about 25 years, and has been public for at least as long as Red Hat has existed. Linux isn't much younger than Windows NT, but it has only really burst into the public attention in the last two or three years, where NT was widely advertised and hyped in the trade press well in advance of it being an actual product.

Sales vs. Installs

[UM_Maverick]

This article says that NT outsold Linux last year...makes me wonder which one had more *installs*. Does anyone out there know approximately how big of a percent Linux sales make, out of the total number of installations?

Oi!

[DragoonAK]

If you're using such slurs as "lunatic socialistic left wing long-haired body-pierced Linux brigade", guess what, you deserve the flames. Come here with an attitude of "Oh, you Linux zealots are doing it wrong, this is how to do it", and yeah, some people are going to take offense. Considering you're just an AC, I'm hoping this is a troll, but answering as if it is legit. And hey, you forgot all the lunatic libertarian body-pierced Linux brigade members - geeks with guns!

OOOOH LA LA! RPM!

[Accelerated Joe]

Big whoop! You can rpm, and that's great, but I can deb! What's the difference? Two things.... First, if I click on an rpm file in netscape, it launches real player. Second, apt baby!

Re:Go, desktop, go!

[platypus]

If I went down to the coffee shop and started asking people "What's your desktop OS?", I really doubt that 1 in 25 would say "I'm using Linux

Ask them: "Did you _buy_ your OS?".
Seriously, in the SOHO and especially in the home market I expect linux _sales_ to be relativly high and to raise, just because the following cases can happen, sorted by probability (IMNSHO):

a) People use pirated copies of commercial OSes
b) People buy hardware with preinstalled commercial OSes and continue with a) when they change the commercial OS (ie. 95 -> 98, 95 -> NT, 95 -> 2000 ...).
c) People run a free os
d) People always pay for their OS.

Do the Math.

[Mike Schiraldi]

But sales of Linux brought in only $32 million for the whole year ... Windows NT, by comparison, brought in $1.7 billion.

"Microsoft makes more money before the morning coffee break every day of the year" than all the purveyors of Linux made in the entire year, Kusnetzky said.

Let's see... 1,700,000,000 / 32,000,000 = 53.125. So it wouldn't even be true to say that Windows NT earns Microsoft more in a week than all the purveyors of Linux in a year. Sure, Linux sales still pale in comparison, but Kusnetzky's comment is about two orders of magnitude off from reality.

Re:I know they're not talking about desktops

[Linux Freak]

Quite right. We're about to acquire 10 rack-mount boxes to use as Linux-based servers, and one vendor included in the quote: "Red Hat Linux 6.1, Qty. 10 Unit Price: 12800 yen Total Price: 1280000 yen".

Our systems manager almost went ahead with this, throwing away about the equivalent $1200 US. I told him that we didn't need the licenses -- the downloaded copy I burnt to CD would suffice. When I finally convinced him as to the legality of this, his jaw pretty much hit the floor.

[ I've only been with the organization a couple of months, and my workstation showing off what Linux is capable has been the source of non-stop amazement for several staffmembers here :-) ]

So yeah...sales figures mean absolutely *nothing* when it comes to how quickly Linux server usage is growing. I'd have to guess that Linux on the server is equal to NT deployment now...while continuing its exponential growth patterns.

one Linux licence = multiple installations

[MS]

Every Linux licence I bought (RedHat or SuSe) was installed on more than one box: from 2 up to about a dozen (I lend the CDs to my collegues). So every Linux sold is actually more than one server running Linux.

On the other hand every Windows licence sold is installed in exaclty one machine (unless pirated, and pirated installations surely make not up 50%, 80% or more of the installed base)!

So to my estimate, Linux has already surpassed Windows not in sales but in number of installed boxes.

:-)
ms

The other Linuxes.

[crush]

The surging popularity of Linux has been partially attributed to the fact that the programming code is exposed, or open, and can be customized by users. As a result, IT managers can obtain an efficiently tailored OS that also costs less. The OS is more popular in low-end file and print servers or slim servers stacked up by the dozen rather than the expensive multiprocessor machines where Unix currently prevails.

I love the distinction between Linux and Unix!

It's interesting that the paragraphs below this talk about "Unix" making up about 53% of the revenue ~ 3 billion. What are the systems that are so expensive even though they are only ~0.8 million (15%) of market-share? Sun, DEC, HP, SGI? They must have appalling licence fees.

Re:The other Linuxes.

[LRJ]

But they do important and often critical stuff. No one would try to use NT or Linux to do what HP/UX or Solaris or AIX can do. And those who need the high-end OS' are more then willing to pay what they are worth.

I think this is changing as Linux gains more market share and PC's become more powerful. And it really depends on what you need the OS to do. I have been working for a company that develops UNIX based manufacturing software for 15 years and in the last year we have had many of our customers switch from using expensive Sun/HP/IBM workhorses to less expensive x86 based Linux/Unixware boxes because they can get the same performance for ALOT less money. When I was first testing our product to see if it would run on Linux, a little over a year ago, I installed it on a throw away P200. I was quite impressed when it compiled (on the first try =) our complete system in 20 minutes - compared to our $20,000 Ultra Sparc which does it in a little over 15 minutes. Since then, we (and our customers) have found that even running 50 - 300 concurrent users (which isn't a large number, but the average size for our customer base) there is not a large performance difference between Linux and the other 'major' UNIX's.

Except for 2 things

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

1) "Nobody ever got fired for following the herd". So instead of trying to convince people to be mavericks, redefine "herd". It's a known fact that people will buy what people are buying. That's why so much marketing is geared towards "most popular", "widely used", "industry leading", etc.

2) Nobody is going to write, say, an email server for a platform that isn't being used. But they WILL do it for a platform that enjoys much market share. Same goes for games, hardware drivers, etc.
--
Java banners:
Bad for users because Java kills Netscape

Re:Nuff said

[debrain]

There are also infinitely more copies of Windows 2000 available this year than there were last year. Relatively, this is good news, but its significance isn't really clear to me.

Particularly when a company like GM can buy one copy of Red Hat and distribute it to thousands of computers.

And, examining Windows NT sales, I can't help but point out the fact that all the money going to NT doesn't really give you anything extra. I mean, copies of Linux have to be outstripping NT in terms of distribution, but the transfer of money isn't so mind-boggling. So using "Linux will save you a fortune, as opposed to NT", seems to be written between the lines in this article ...

Re:Funny quote from Sun

[debrain]

Sun does stand for Standard UNix, after all ...

Re:NT market share stayed the same, linux up 92%..

[Ozric]

I think it will be more fun watching MSFT tell the World that NT4 is total crap and now you need 2K because now it is right. I think that alot of CIO's will be trying to keep the CEO's cool about spending soon much on NT in the first place. It really might have been cheaper to stick with *nix in the first place.

Re:Server or Desktop, I can't tell

[Wah]

don't forget that one sold copy of Linux can account for any number of installations. NT gets the bonus (and makes all the cash) because of their extemely tight licensing restrictions and the M$ tax.

Still nice to see progress...

Re:Linux sales only

[Score Whore]

Not going to get into this argument about which OS is better, since pretty much any os that has a decent install base has some feature set that is worthwhile.

But, there's a lot more students who can afford to send four bucks to cheap bytes or thirty-five bucks for a copy of RedHatCheapoEdition than can afford to pick up a $700 of NT Server or $100-$200 for NT Workstation.

Re:That IS the hidden story, isn't it?

[Score Whore]

Statements like that also make the investors wonder why the hell they are paying ~$70/share for Linux companies...

Re:Oxymoron

[Score Whore]

Why are you installing a web browser on a server? Does your boss know about this?

Re:But 1 Linux server = 4 NT servers

[Score Whore]

Not to cast aspersions, but the amount of utility you can leverage from a server is often directly relevant to the skill of the admin. The primary difference between NT and Linux in this area is that Linux typically provides less feature-full services and NT requires a lot more proprietary training. With Linux you can look under the hood easily and figure out how things work and why a particular configuration isn't doing the right thing. With NT, unless you are Terje Mathieson, you just can't do that.

Re:Linux Grows/MS Shoots Itself in the Foot

[Score Whore]

Not going to touch on piracy (which can indeed exist in a "GNU" world, just don't contribute your changes back...) But it's probably smart to realize that StarOffice is only a replacement for MS Office in the home enviroment. It's not even in the same ballpark in an enterprise.

Re:Linux sales only

[Score Whore]

...are legally supposed to pay for software.

Which means, of course, that they won't show up in the sales figures. No? Yet they often will drop $35 for "the cause."

Extremely hardcore technical background?

[VP]

As a widely acknowledged expert in marketing, and coming from an extremely hardcore technical background (Ex NT admin and VBA developer)

I hope you meant "hardcore" as "filthy and disgusting for many people" :-)

but they're not talking about desktops

[CrudPuppy]

they're talking about the server market.

we also need to keep in mind that Linus himself
said that Linux was not suited well for the
high-end server market, since it still does not
scale well.

i love linux, but too many people are jumping on
the bandwagon just to say they did, when they would be better off with a more robust and scaleable OS (Solaris, HPUX, AIX....)

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[timftbf]

Eh? TTBOMK, Linux *does* run on Sun E[0-9]+k servers. I'm sure I've seen dmesg output from one of the big names on the Sparc port showing it coming up on a 14-CPU box.

I'm not saying it scales as well as Solaris on this type of box - I'm sure it doesn't, and I doubt it works especially well with things like the E10k's partitioning. But I'm sure it's at least running...

Regards,
Tim.

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[jimfrost]

we also need to keep in mind that Linus himself said that Linux was not suited well for the high-end server market, since it still does not scale well.

This is true, but then again neither does NT, and Linux' is improving visibly in this area with every passing day.

But this is not particularly important. The bread-and-butter of NT is not big servers, it's all those little ones. If we can win the hearts and minds of small server buyers then we will beat Microsoft.

I feel kinda bad for Sun, though. They're screwed no matter which way this goes.

jim frost

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[jimfrost]

That's what DEC thought before Sun and that's what IBM thought before DEC.

There's this funny thing called Moore's Law that basically means that stuff that takes really expensive hardware today will be possible on machines that cost half as much 18 months from now. Run through that iteration a few times and you're looking at doing most everything on commodity hardware. We're way, way into that cycle now.

I'm quite familiar with Sun's offerings and I agree that today they have a really nice market. But the number of people who need to spend that kind of money to get the job done shrinks (as a percentage of population) every year simply because the cheap machines get good enough to do the job.

Why the heck do you think NT Server sold so many copies? It's not because it was better than a low-end Solaris box, it was because it was cheaper and did the job well enough. (And that's why Linux is a big problem for Microsoft: it does the job more than well enough and it's free.)

Now, with the web blowing big server demand through the roof Sun is going to do well for awhile ... but it can't last forever. I'd be surprised if they pulled five more years out of it. And when they crash it's gonna make DEC's wild ride look like a mere fender-bender.

jim frost

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[jimfrost]

I dunno about that -- Look at where Sun and Linux were two years ago, and compare that with where they are today. Linux has exploded, creating more mindshare for Unix -- if anything, that has *helped* Sun -- Sun's earnings and stock price both have mushroomed dramatically over the past 2 years...

Linux has helped Sun by causing the Unix market to grow far faster than many so-called experts predicted it would.

No. The buying public doesn't really care what operating system they're running. They care that it's cheap. Open Systems didn't sell UNIX in the 80s, it was the fact that you could buy a Sun for half the cost of a VAX and it ran several times as fast. And Open Source isn't selling Linux, it's that it runs really well on cheap hardware and it costs a lot less than anything else.

NT has been growing like mad, but it wasn't because it was a better product than UNIX or Novell or whatever. The fact of the matter is that the PC platform has gotten so good that you can do a lot of stuff on it now, and for most of the last five years the most cost-effective OS on the PC was NT by quite a margin.

Seen this way, it is no wonder that Linux is exploding. It's using commodity hardware and has an incremental cost of zero (while NT's incremental cost has skyrocketed of late). Linux is going to hurt NT really, really bad on the server.

I've long said that Sun's problem isn't Microsoft: it's Intel (and nowadays AMD too). As commodity hardware gets better and better it pulls in more and more customers that used to have to buy bigger stuff (e.g. Suns).

Ok, I hear you thinking: If this is true, why is Sun doing so well? Two reasons. First, the web has caused an explosion of demand for servers. If you're not growing you must really suck. That growth will level out in the next couple of years as we reach the market saturation point. But just as importantly most of the web software out there today scales better by running it on bigger hardware than by replicating hardware. People who were serving a few hundred thousand hits two years ago on a midrange Sun are serving millions today, and it was way easier to buy a bigger Sun than to rewrite their software to work in a distributed manner.

There is, however, a limit to how far you can go with the One Big Box approach. (Just ask eBay.) When you hit that limit and are forced to distribute you then have the choice of going with lots of commodity boxes or a few big boxes. Well, lots of commodity boxes is cheaper and far more fault-tolerant (they may fail more often, but the percentage loss is smaller). An awful lot of companies are going to go with that approach, and the ones who don't are still going to shift to less expensive boxes (with much lower profit margins) because they can.

So what Sun's seeing today is a bubble caused by a combination of overall market explosion and legacy software. That bubble will break. The only question is when.

jim frost

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[jimfrost]

Ther are few that can touch Sun when it comes to the *real high end enterprise* market. Linux and NT (despite what the marketing drones from MS say) are not in direct competition with Sun.

What you say is true; today Sun has some really significant market advantages. But those advantages are not permanent; anyone with a little time and the appropriate talent can reproduce them.

Ok, nowadays you can buy your Starfire server with a gazillion processors and no NT or Linux box can touch it. Well, six years ago Sun couldn't do it either. They got better, and I think it's a foregone conclusion that PC platforms and OSs are going to get better too.

Now, some people believe that Sun can continue to push this envelope. The fact of the matter is that they can't. They already have the OS operating at super high levels of concurrency, they're not going to be able to get that much more improvement out of it. But that's not even the thing that will hurt them the most.

As PCs get better they will eat at more and more of the low-end Sun customers. Sun will not be able to grow the high end fast enough to sustain their income because there just aren't that many customers who need it, and as the customer base shrinks their R&D costs will be skyrocketing because incremental improvements get more and more expensive with each generation.

This has been happening for years. I don't know about you, but half of my career was spent on Sun workstations -- and as a result I have a soft spot in my heart for Sun. But that soft spot wasn't enough to get me to spend ten grand on a Sun workstation in 1995 when I could get a PC that was almost as fast (and had more memory and faster graphics) for three thousand.

Not surprisingly I went with the PC, and by 1997 lots of traditional Sun customers were doing the same. That was the first year that Sun's workstation sales growth underperformed the overall market growth. Today nobody even talks about Sun as a workstation vendor. They're a server vendor. They had to move upstream because they weren't making any money downstream.

This process will continue, with commodity hardware taking more and more sales from the bottom-end of Sun's product line. As it does so Sun's R&D will be amortized over fewer and fewer systems even as the R&D costs skyrocket for each incremental improvement. It will not take long before they run out of money for new R&D and shortly thereafter they'll run out of customers.

This story should sound familiar; it's what happened to the supercomputer companies and mainframe companies and minicomputer companies. And it's going to happen to Sun. Mark my words: they're in their glory days now. All of the weaker competitors have already died.

jim frost

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[jimfrost]

If Sun's market share is being gradually eaten from the lower end up, how do you explain their rapid growth in both earnings and stock price over the last few years ?

Much more of their income is coming from high-margin servers rather than volume workstations. That makes them a lot more profitable even as their unit sales decrease.

That's great business, but it's exactly the same kind of business that IBM was in before DEC showed up, and DEC was in before Sun showed up. Over time the cheaper machines got good enough to do the job and all at once there was a market discontinuity and the incumbant saw income collapse.

In response to your claim that powerful PCs will overtake Sun's hardware -- well many UNIX servers are less powerful than today's top of the line x86 hardware. But they still sell.

There is a resistance to movement because it's expensive to jump hardware platforms, particularly between operating systems. There has been a whole lot of resistance towards jumping on PCs because the dominant OS has been NT for the last few years. NT hasn't been particularly mature and the jump is especially costly because there is little in common between the two systems.

This is one area where Linux stands to make a really big impact. Lots of Sun customers who wouldn't use NT would use Linux. But really this will only accelerate the migration, it would happen anyway.

Also, you have to factor in the relative lifetimes of machines. It's only been in the last couple of years that PC platforms have started to get competitive with some of Sun's server-class systems, but the lifetime of a system is three to five years. That means that a lot of those systems will start being retired in the next two to three years and you should start to see a lot of defections.

Given the growth of NT Server this may already have happened; it's hard to tell because the server market has simply exploded due to demand for web servers. That's hiding a whole lot of Sun's problems.

I don't think that the PC will ever push Sun out of the server market.

There are a whole lot of ex-DEC employees who thought the same way. Never say never; the ongoing progress of technology (and especially the pace of Moore's Law) continually destabilizes the market.

jim frost

Re:but they're not talking about desktops

[cfish]

Look. the ENTIRE stock market climbed like insane in the last five years, not just Sun. In fact, any computer related company has great growth.

Please do not forget that Sun is not the only company that makes high end servers. IBM's S390 is growing rapidly in the past few years, too, no doubt due to e-commerce.

One thing that guarantees Sun set is Sun's attitude towards the community and developers. In this bussiness, technological excellence does not guarantee success, attitude does. Microsoft and Linux never has that "I'm too good for you" attitude like Sun.

I did not understand Linus' problems with Sun until the first two hours that I have to deal with Sun's people. They ARE idiots.

Did anyone think PC will push Macs out of the market? Well, Mac wouldn't have survived without MS.

Re:NT 2000 and Linux

[Alvandaar]

I think your right with the first point, Linux won't eclipse NT (or Windows 2K for the sake) anytime soon. Especially the desktop market is extremly unlikely to change in the near future - but the low-end to mid-range server market is another matter.
Linux delivers a stable server plattform at little licensing cost (for backup sw, etc.) and the tools provided are also free, eg. vi(m) which you seem to dislike, however there is no better editor to view a 250 MB logfile or would you open such a file in the NT-editor.

Best regards,

• Jochen

Re:what's so great about "capitalism"?

[timothy]

This reply makes me hopeful that the original post which started the thread was not actually flamebait.

Perhaps it would more accurate to use the term "free market" rather than "capitalism" -- Linux *is* free market. "Capitalism" is Marx's term for it, and not an entirely accurate one. It implies a worshipful attitude toward money which is possible (but not necessary) in a free economy.

I think the term is often confusing because "Capitalists" can include monks who sell fruitcakes on the internet, speakers whose money comes from remaining popular and in-demand, and anyone else who trades Stuff They Have Or Do for Other People's Stuff, without coercion.

Linus might / might not call himself a "capitalist," and may or may not share your conception of it, but Linux the operating system is the result of a great deal of voluntary, decentralized transactions. Not all monetary, true, but then people can find value in a great variety of things.

Just thoughts,

timothy

Re:NT market share stayed the same, linux up 92%..

[The_H0und]

Not only is Linux taking away market share from other unices, but it is doing it with the help of the companies who wrote those unices. Sun is now shipping their systems optionally with linux. IBM is doing the same. Both of these have unices of their own.

Once all of these companies are trying to get linux to meet their customers needs, NT will have a run for its money!

New methodolgies.

[nevets]

While reading about how the distros are not making much money but VA is doing OK because it sells the computers too. Also thinking that Solaris, Apple and AIX all have easy installs, but that is because they own the hardware too. Then I though, gee, can't the hardware manufactures use Linux as their main OS and modify the kernel to suit their needs. Yes, this will become hairy when you down load a new kernel, but if the manufactures submit their changes (they have to reveal their code anyway) then it may not be a problem. This way we can go back to the old IBM philosophy about "Buying hardware not software" since all hardware will use Linux (grant you, this is futuristic since Windows is now the main OS). Linux could be the ultimate solution for hardware folks, not wanting to follow the crowd.

Yes, I know of the issues with this scenario, but I'm sure someone may be able to figure them out.

But this way HW manufactures can have more control of the software than they do now.

Just my 0.02

Steven Rostedt

Re:NT market share stayed the same, linux up 92%..

[nevets]

Last week in NYC, while riding the subway, I saw a gentleman reading a TCP/IP book. Being a Linux advocate, I approached him and asked if he was a network administrator and does he use Linux. He told me that he was, and that he works for a large company where the managers told him to stay a way from Linux and only use NT and OS/2. He continued to tell me that they would both go down every other day, until finally they had enough and the administrators (without telling the managers) installed Linux. Since then everything went smoothly. Their managers asked how they fixed the down time problems, and the admins are afraid to tell them. This is bad since the managers now think that NT is stable.

Asking for his business card, it is interesting to note that the company he works for is Bell Atlantic! And I'm sure that they are quite larger than your normal networking situation.

Also, while down there, I did not see any "Windows 2000" signs. It must have just started.

Steven Rostedt

Redhat support sucks.

[Malcontent]

It takes an average of three days to get a useless and wrong answer to your problem after you enter a ticket on the web. Forget about actually talking to a person.

Don't waste your money on a RH distro thinking you are acutally going to get support from them.

Re:Unix* is now #1...

[Sun Tzu]

...If you add Linux and the lumped-together Unices' market shares. Since they lumped together other Unices, I'll take the liberty to add Linux into the group as well. (Yes, I know Linux in general isn't blessed as Unix by The Open Group, but so what? OS/390 is and it's surely not added into the Unix number.)

So... Unix/Linux now has 40%, passing NT at 38%.

*Oh yeah, UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. ;)

Linux machines could be lower than indicated, too

[georgeha]

It depends on what they're measuring, but at least for me, I have four Linux machines at home, and counting the copies of Linux that I bought from cheapbytes, bought in books, bought retail, and got in my Cheerios, I probably have

1 RedHat 4
3 Redhat 5
3 RedHat 6
2 Caldera 1
3 Caldera 2
2 Mandrakes
2 SUSe
2 Debian
3 Slackware

for about a 5:1 ratio of OSes to machines.

For FreeBSD, I have 1 FreeBSd server, and

3 FreeBSD
1 NetBSD
1 OpenBSD

for about the same ratio.

Hmm, sounds like a good slashdot poll, just how many Linux CD's do you have?

George

Re:Linux machines could be lower than indicated, t

[georgeha]

You bought all those copies of Linux last year?

About half of them last year, and about a third this year, I was doing book research (the Samba Administrator's Handbook).

George

Novell is hurting (was Re:NT market share stayed)

[Simon Brooke]

I drew a different conclusion from this article. I saw WinNT roughly the same, Linux sharply up, Novell sharply down, and the conclusion I drew is that (most) of the Windows crowd are staying where they are, but a significant portion of the Novell market is moving to Linux. This is not to say that no-one is preferring Linux over WinNT.

Still as of this moment I don't believe Microsoft is suffering that much from the Linux advance (I believe it will); I think the people who are suffering are Novell.

Solaris *not* Open Source (TM)

[divec]

Sun are releasing Solaris 8 under a license which lets you obtain the source, but not distribute and modify it; so this license isn't Open Source (as certified by OSI) nor Free, as deined in the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

I.e. this is "free as in beer", not "free as in speech".

Reliability of software running on dodgy hardware

[divec]

> [...] Win2k will require that you have perfectly
> reliable hardware and software or even more BSOD's
> will result.

Is there a circumstance when Linux will cope with dodgy hardware but NT will flake? I know that high end unices can detect and cope with broken hardware, but can linux do better than NT?

Re:Go, desktop, go!

[lubricated]

From the people I know. More than Half would say they are running linux. And I live in Seattle. Not to far from Redmond and Microsoft HQ. All serious academic computing is done on unix. Where I work we are in the process of getting rid of all unixes except for Linux. We have one G4 and one p100 barely running windows95. we need this to make sure our product runs properly on these machines. Then the people that work here use linux at home. I really don't know that many people who don't run linux.

So little money

[speek]

Apparently, Linux isn't making anyone much money (if their stats are true). Only $32 million/year. That's paltry, especially for an OS that has 25% of the server market. RedHat may be able to make a decent business, but a market valuation of over 5 billion is not supportable if this is indicative of how much money there is in Linux OS sales.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing (well, just for owners of Red Hat stock, or VA stock). It indicates that hardware is what you sell. Software is what you support and contribute to (in order to make your hardware more appealing).

It also suggests there's a lot of savings to be had for the economy by switching to open-source where feasible. And that simply translates to greater productivity, which is what economic growth is all about.

Re:So little money

[speek]

You're suggesting the the true underlying economic cost to develop software is the time spent by the developers. Absolutely. Further, let's suggest the time spent developing Linux is, or will be, the same or greater than the time spent developing Windows or Solaris. Therefore, the underlying, true productivity costs are roughly equivalent. The question is, are you avoiding unnecessary steps with one model vs. the other?

With most proprietary software, you pay a per license fee, which means that the underlying cost (time to develop said software) has a strange relationship to the actual monetary value paid for the software. The economic cost is paid once. The monetary cost is paid repeatedly. This suggests an inefficiency that could potentially be avoided.

The Linux business model seems to be to not pay for the software, but rather, pay for ongoing support. Both cases avoid the problem of finding the funds to pay for the underlying economic cost (developer time), by using a weakly related activity to generate money. It seems to me that in one case, the cost is overpaid (license fees), whereas the other is probably too early to say. If it turns out it is underpaid, then maybe the Linux companies are doomed to failure (or that another model will come into play, personally, I think this is likely).

But, I stick by my suggestion that we are heading toward a more efficient valuation of the costs of software, which will have the effect of saving money overall.

Oh, and in regard to the hardware thing - this situation may simply be forced upon companies (ie all companies would choose to make a killing off proprietary software, given the choice, but they may not have the choice), in which case, there means of competing is reduced to hardware superiority, and better marketing.

Re:So little money

[speek]

Well, compare the proprietary licensing model to the co-source model. Do you disagree that the licensing model is a less direct relationship to the costs of developer time than the co-source model?

Imagine Microsoft being a huge faction of developers accepting bids on co-source to create their software. Would the combined costs there come anywhere near the price being paid now (I realize Microsoft, being a monopoly is a bad example, but substitute Corel, if you like, or Borland).

Not that I think Co-source can succeed in its current implementation, but I think something like that could work pretty well. At least, for those brave enough to take that plunge.

Re:So little money

[speek]

Well, you raise a good point about the problem of co-source - that being a competitive advantage to those who wait. Although, one could argue, those companies that agressively fund software that benefits them will gain some advantage that way. The overall cost to a company in this situation would probably be very much less than in a proprietary model. That assumes other companies are kicking in to pay for it as well. A big if, as you suggest.

Regarding the question of why should developers give up their rights to their creations - it's not a question of choice. You do what you have to do to compete. If a business model shows up that's will to work for 10% of the price you charge, you are forced to get down to that level, or stop competing. If open source creates a truly viable alternative to Windows, for so little cost, how long can Windows survive? It will catch up to them eventually. (note, I'm not saying Linux is at that point yet - I use Linux now, and I can barely stand it. I'm just betting on its future).

Co-source won't work in all situations. But those areas where it does, current companies whose revenue comes from competing sources should experience serious difficulties. Unfortunately for our little debate (which I've enjoyed enormously!), we won't really know the answers for another 5 years or so.

Misleading

[vectro]

The numbers are misleading since you can freely distribute GNU/Linux. Here is the letter I sent to the author of the article:

Just read your article "Linux sales surge past competitors". I'd like to point out that it's really quite impossible to tell how many new linux installs there are, because the software can be freely distributed. So although 25% of the operating systems sold were linux, it's possible that the number of new linux installs is much greater -- potentially, even higher than NT.

#Processors

[n8willis]

The article mentions that the numbers may be misleading due to the fact that downloads aren't counted, and that they don't account for multiple installs off of a single purchased Linux prod.

What <i>I'd</i> like to see is how the data would break down if it took MP into account -- my guess is that "Unix" numbers would shoot up considerably, since Sun hardware for instance is so MP-centric. And that might be a more telling statistic than the number of boxes alone.

(Of course, it might be more interesting <u>still</u> to see how it all breaks down by MFLOPS....)

Re:NT market share stayed the same, linux up 92%..

[jimfrost]

Linux increased in distribution at the expense of Netware and the Commercial Unixes

I can say quite definitively that Linux increased to some degree at the expense of NT as well. I've replaced a number of NT boxes in both server and workstation roles with Linux.

Now, maybe that trend doesn't hold with the industry at large, but a whole lot of the development organization I work with is running Linux today -- and almost all of them were on NT just six months ago.

I really never thought I'd see this much support for Linux.

jim frost

numbers seem a little off

[imac.usr]

They show Linux at a 4% desktop share, trailing MacOS's 5%. They also say that the Linux share comes out to around 3.9 million users. This would make the MacOS share roughly 4.9 million (just under a million per percentage point). Does that seem low to anybody else, considering that Apple sold 1.3 million machines last quarter alone? I would think Apple's shipment share in 1999 would have been at least 5-6 million, including sales of Mac OS 8.6 and 9 to users who didn't necessarily buy a new machine.

Re:Customers bad for MS!?!

[ericfitz]

Actually, Windows NT 4.0 sales are very high right now in part because Microsoft is giving enormous Windows 2000 upgrade discounts to people who buy Windows NT 4.0 before Windows 2000 releases.

Small fish drains pond. Pictures at 11.

[tialaramex]

This is exactly what Red Hat have set out to do since they first discovered that you could actually SELL Linux for more than cost. Rather than try to grow a small independent vendor into the big OS pond, they've set out to shrink the market until they're the biggest player left. This is an unusual tactic, but one that works especially well against a company like Microsoft which MUST grow to survive. It might seem from the figures that this will hurt proprietary Unix more, but in reality those vendors charge sky-high fees for their OS for exactly the same reason they charge sky-high fees for a new mouse, or a 17in monitor -- they can. Sun have shown how little Server OS revenue impacts their bottom line this year.

Next year, expect to see Microsoft bundle Windows and Office for the first time, in a package aimed at businesses. They will need to re-establish their "unique value" and that's the only way I can see to do it. Also you can expect Windows 2000 to take up to 40% of the market, and more than half of the remaining Server market going to Linux. Desktop domination? Not yet, but the excuses for having Windows will get sillier this year e.g. "I can't switch yet because Linux doesn't have an Access Clone" or "Linux is doomed on the desktop by the lack of 3D pinball". I won't even blink if Linux client sales exceed all MacOS sales for 2000.

The next millenium should be really exciting.

Re:Oxymoron

[oldman1080]

You said: "Two words: Windows 2000"

You know I installed W2K about a week ago and I was excited, I kept reading about how everyone said it didn't need reboots. Let me tell everyone now: that is the biggest lie ever. True, you don't reboot when you add or change the IP address of your W2K workstation/server. That is because in the networking properties you can add another DUN-type icon (similar to ethx:x interfaces). However, try changing the workgroup for your W2K professional! Curiously, a message will pop up saying "Please hit OK to restart or hit cancel to do it later". And this isn't the only case, it will reboot in every case that NT4 ever had to.

In other words, DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT FALL FOR THIS LIE SPREAD BY MS AND THEIR TROLLS! Windows 2000 is not a complete rewrite of NT4 nor is it completely revamped. In fact, the first day I ran it, what do you know? IE5.5 crashed on me, though W2K was able to recover, all my running apps were now missing from the starbar and traybar. Task manager brought them up, but there was no way to bring it to the foreground so I had to end the tasks and start my apps over again. I uninstalled W2K a few days later and will stick to Win98 for my gaming needs. Despite crashing frequently, Win98 at least doesn't run horrendously slow on my 64MB ram like Win2K does.

Re:it's only a matter of time

[deaddeng]

stf "...for the average desktop user, NT presents a reliable cohesive environment."

what the heck does "cohesive" mean in this context? It does what they expect it to do? (crash...just kidding).

I'd say that NT is good for the enterprise environment, but not for the average desktop user. It may be more reliable than Win9x (YMMV), but it has very limited support for multimedia, a much more restricted hardware base--no PnP, no PCI steering, no USB, no AGP--and is VERY unforgiving of changes in the hardware configuration. Heck, RH6.1 is waaay more forgiving, and Kudzu actually works at detecting new hardware (if only it played nicer with isapnp).

For the average desktop user, Win98 presents an equally reliable cohesive environment (whatever cohesive means).

Here are the simple instructions for upgrading WinNT hardware:

Replace HDD? Reinstall WinNT...
Replace Motherboard? Reinstall...
Replace Video Card? Reinstall..
Installed new software that modified any networking or display settings? Reapply service pack X.

Win2k is a quantum leap--I've heard almost nothing bad about it (other than it is late) even from most Linux zealots.

NT only first in SHIPMENTS

[jtosburn]

These stats only count units actually shipped. How many places purchase 500 units of distro X Linux? But with NT, you're obligated to do so. So, while the NT Server count represents actual use, we KNOW that the Linux count is only a fraction of actual use. And to prove how well Linux is doing, by counting this way, Linux still accounted for %25 of OSes shipped, nearly 2/3 the ammount of NT server.
Another feather in the cap of World Domination?

One big flaw (?)

[LinuxParanoid]

How did they determine that particular split (1.35M servers, 3.9M clients) between Linux copies being sold for servers and ones being sold for workstations? This is easy with NT and with the UNIXes given the branding and packaging issues there, but totally non-trivial for Linux.

Some major assumption is buried here. I'd like to know what it is and whether it has held constant. It could affect that growth rate (98%) significantly.

Other than that, glad to see continued progress according to this metric. Useful for talking to those PHBs. :-)

--LP

No sales are

[say97cat]

not accurate guages of linux usage for many reasons. A sold linux distrubution may install entire networks. I have 3 linux boxes at home and another 3 at work. They were all installed from copied cds. None of these machines would be included in these figures although they all came on line in 99. The actual number of boxes running linux may be unknowable and higher then we think.

Oxymoron

[hedgehog_uk]

"NT Server" is one of the greatest oxymorons (like "Military Intelligence" or "Microsoft Works"

I recently installed the Neoplanet web browser onto an NT box. It required a reboot. This sort of behaviour does not meet my definition of a modern server operating system.

HH

Re:Oxymoron

[Rico_Suave]

Two words: Windows 2000

But 1 Linux server = 4 NT servers

[Hynman]

At my last job the IT department had like 9 NT servers all of which could be replaced by 2 Linux servers. Because you never have to reboot a linux server, it is ok (safer) to piggy back services on a server rather than having to have 1 server for each function. If you do need to shut down a linux service, you don't have to take the whole server and the rest of it's services down. Not to mention less downtime and all....

Re:But 1 Linux server = 4 NT servers

[TummyX]

you've got pretty lame admins if you can't keep the server up as long as Linux. and you're even lamer if you think you have to shutdown the whole server to shutdown a service.

Reality Check

[Hynman]

"Lies, damn lies, and statistics."

These numbers are still depressing. It shows how many IT officers are valuing point-and-click over performance. I personally think any IT officer should be fired if they buy another copy of NT, unless contractually obligated. Then the contractee should have their head examined.

NT 4 _DOES_ have PnP

[UnknownSoldier]

I have a SB 16 PnP and it works under NT.

Microsoft put Plug 'n Play in NT 4 (very BASIC support)
They just forgot to tell anyone.

PnP under NT4

> It may be more reliable than Win9x (YMMV)

It IS way more reliable. No thunking, or win16 mutexes tieing up the system.

Win99 (aka Win98SE) crashes twice a day where I work.

Cheers

Re:It goes both ways

[wass]

I've got about 10 Linux install CD's, and two BSD CD's (well, distribution versions, as some are multi-CD). There are a few points to be made here about why you must account both ways to estimate linux install base. This is all probably obvious, but I'm listing it here anyway.

Firstly, I have not yet purchased an official Linux distro, so for reports such as this NT vs Linux article, I'm counted as a zero (Unless cheapbytes sales and downloads count, which I don't think they do.)

Secondly, as you have said, multiple versions and distros get bought for the same computer, which can over-estimate the number of linux boxes. However, isn't this also true of NT as well? Can one really assume that every version of NT that was purchased went to a newly acquired computer? Although most people are probably upgrading from Winxx to NT. Also, linux is probably re-installed more often, as the hardware requirements aren't as stringent as NT.

Thirdly, a single copy of linux can be LEGALLY installed on multiple computers. For instance, I've installed mandrake 6.1 on two computers at home, two at work, my brothers and his friend's computer (plus who knows how many more as they cloned the CD twice for themselves), and my father's computer. So, that's 7 installs off of this single Mandrake 6.1 CD so far, which wasn't even an official purchase. [Don't worry, once Mandrake gets its act together with Major Release 7 (ie, 7.1 or 7.2) I'll buy an offical copy or two of it]. Thus, there is a multiplier factor to account for.

Basically, my point is that you cannot really estimate the actual number of linux users out there (and also NT somewhat), and there are multiply/divide factors both ways that one must take into consideration. Also, expect more estimatation difficulties of NT's install base when win2k is released (ie, would one be upgrading to win2k, or installing on a whole new computer).

Server or Desktop, I can't tell

[Duxup]

"Linux for servers are higher than sales for any other operating system except WinNT"
I think this is great news and all but with a grain of salt or so . .
The article doesn't exactly seem to say how you can differentiate (or if they even are differentiating) between the OS being sold and used for the purposes of being a server, and purchases that are used for the desktop environment.
It also gives a bit of the wrong impression on what's being used out there. The numbers they give are sales for the last few years NOT the actual percentage of all systems running the listed OSes. Linux still has a big big hill to climb I think, but is moving up.
Still good news though!

Re:Server or Desktop, I can't tell

[Duxup]

That is a good point it sure can.!
I didn't mention FTP download and FTP installations, however I think those are usually limited to experienced Linux (server) admins, and there's not a massive # of them compared to other OSes (at least not yet).
I spoke with a few friends at several large IS consulting services and interest in Linux is noticeable they say, however they installations are still quite rare. Most of their clients have a wait and see look, but do ask about it often. With the exception of using it for web hosting, that is very common for companies that handle their own hosting now they tell me.

Re:Server or Desktop, I can't tell

[Duxup]

Enable voice modulator . . .
Active!

That's quite true.
From experience I know as well that just because your supposed to use legal copies of NT doesn't mean they're not using several NT installs illegaly. It would be an interesting thing to see (I don't think it can be reliably tracked) to compare the # of illegal multiple NT installs to the multiple installs of Linux.

(I'm sure this story is not uncommon) I worked once for a company who hozed their NT system running Exchange (their own darned fault) and reloaded and reconfigured (fools who don't backup) and all. Aprox 120 days (I think it was 120) later the system didn't work . . . They had installed the trial ver of their OS! *sigh*

Linux Grows/MS Shoots Itself in the Foot

[HipNerd]

The Linux market has grown at an astonomical rate, and a convergence of MS mistakes and Linux milestones should ensure that the market grows even more.

1) MS is getting investigted by the European Union
The EU patiently waited for the U.S. antitrust action to be compeleted before launching it's own investigation of Microsoft's anti-competitive practices. The big trouble for MS is that they are targeting Windows 2000. An injunction preventing them from distributing it in Europe would be really bad for MS, even on a temporary basis.

2) Corel Buying Borland
Corel has made some interesting partnerships, and they appear to be banking on Linux's success. As they release more and more commercial applications for Linux, it becomes easier and easier to wean companies off of MS.

3) MS Tries to Combat Piracy
This has to be one of the most misguided ideas to ever come out of Redmond. New copies of Office 2000 will force you to register with Microsoft.

In a classic example of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, MS risks forcing people who like their software free as in "no money" to go looking elsewhere for their products. MS is able to dominate the office-suite market becasue they are the de-facto standard. If they start driving people at home to use other software, it puts that market dominance at risk.

If I have StarOffice at home because I didn't want to pay $500 for MS Office, I am much more likely to push for StarOffice (or StarPortal) at work. If MS was smart, they would leave the common home piracy alone, recognizing that maintaining market dominance is more important that trying to squeeze an extra few hundred bucks out of day-to-day home users.

All of these are Good Things(TM) for the Linux community. More and more users, developers and major companies are seeing Linux as a way to get out from under Microsoft's thumb. Now if Adobe would port the rest of their software library to Linux, I could eliminate my Win32 partition altogether.

HipNerd

Re:Linux Grows/MS Shoots Itself in the Foot

[HipNerd]

I agree with the StarOffice/MS Office analysis, which is why I brought up StarPortal. Although this may not be the perfect solution for large-scale enterprise yet, it is a great step in the right direction and it is free (in price).

HipNerd

Re:Linux Grows/MS Shoots Itself in the Foot

[HipNerd]

True. For the enterprise you'd probably be better off with Wordperfect. :-)

Wordperfect needs a little more tweaking on the stability side as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it should be called Wordalmostperfect. ;-)

HipNerd

That IS the hidden story, isn't it?

[Tau Zero]

I was looking to see if anyone else had noticed this little part of the article:

But sales of Linux brought in only $32 million for the whole year, less than 1 percent of the $5.7 billion market. Windows NT, by comparison, brought in $1.7 billion.

"Microsoft makes more money before the morning coffee break every day of the year" than all the purveyors of Linux made in the entire year, Kusnetzky said.

You could phrase this a little differently, perhaps like this: "Linux vendors only charged $32 million for the entire year, while Windows NT fees brought Microsoft $1.7 billion while shipping only 31% more units." I think phrasing like that would get the suits to finally ask themselves, "What are we getting for all this money we're spending? Is it worth it?" And we can all hope that more of them will answer "No".
--

Do the numbers include MSDN shipments?

[Arthur Dent]

There's another factor to consider: MSDN shipments.
You can get copies of all MS OSes at the MSDN professional level ($500 per year). Are these shipments included in the NT numbers? If so, then the NT numbers could be inflated quite a bit.

Funny quote from Sun

[Ledge Kindred]

Remember the quote, "There is no more Unix market, there is only a Solaris market"?

I hope someone at Sun is feeling like an idiot about now. (But probably not. He probably has his head too far up his @$$...)

-=-=-=-=-

Go, desktop, go!

[abram_fettig]

It struck me as just as impressive that the desktop market share for Linux was up to 4%. As the article points out, that's only 1% behind Apple. Wow. Compare that to a year ago.

However, a little part of me has some doubts... It has been pointed out already, and I think quite correctly, that the number of retail copies sold don't really reflect the number of Linux users, since so many of us choose to download and/or burn our own CDs. My question is, how are server/desktop sales calculated? What about Joe "Windows Power User" Schmoe who buys Red Hat at Best Buy so he can play with it? Is that a desktop or a server sale? And if he only uses it once or twice, spending the vast majority of his time booting to his Windows 98 partition, does that really reflect an increase in Linux market share?

I think that Linux is a great desktop OS, and I have helped a few friends install it on their computers. But I guess I still have trouble believing a 4% market share. If I went down to the coffee shop and started asking people "What's your desktop OS?", I really doubt that 1 in 25 would say "I'm using Linux!".

So is it just me, or do these statistics not reflect the reality? Maybe you just can't compare the market share of free and comercial software...

Abe

Re:Go, desktop, go!

[Rico_Suave]

Yeah, I think that 4% is pretty inaccurate. Before statmarket.com dropped it's free access (around December), I remember the percent of Linux users on the internet was closer to 1% - I think the number of people browsing with a particular OS is a better indicator of market share than OS'es purchased, because it doesn't take into account people who downloaded/copied/otherwise didn't purchase the OS, as well as those who, as you pointed out, buy an OS but do not use it. I have purchased both RedHat and Corel, but I don't use either.

Re:NT 2000 and Linux

[xyz123]

Well, some sysadmins I know, and also some other people I know, including myself, actually think that vi is a great editor, especially in its reincarnation as vim.

Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for those who are looking for another USP for Linux, Vim is also available for NT.

New standards

[horsie]

New standards in reliability...

1. You can now set your watch by NT. It always crashes at the same time
2. All new LOWs in uptime length
3. All new M$ certification$ all over the place

Sales?

[matticus]

Does this take into account free downloads? probably not. Linux has an even higher share than this indicates, being as most people i know downloaded and burned their copy of linux+distribution. Too bad there wouldn't be a good statistical method to check this out.

Exactly

[ebcdic1]

I have probably 4 or 5 books that I purchased just for administrative purposes. The cds are still sealed up tight inside the cover. I usually would buy the book when I ran into something I needed hard info on...CD or no CD was inconsequential... You can see how hard it is to track widespread use with out actually contacting the people...

Re:Linux machines could be lower than indicated, t

[gfxguy]

Good point...

I just gave all of mine away, and I had a lot more than you and only one machine running Linux. Building a new firewall with OpenBSD, but I've also had two versions of FreeBSD just sitting on the shelf.

Still, in a corporate environment, an IT department would never order 50 copies of RedHat. I mean, why even buy more than one? On the other hand, they'd HAVE to buy 50 copies of NT.

----------

Moderate this WAY UP.

[chandler]

My god:

• You're right. I've been saying this for a long time. Solaris, Linux, and the *BSDen look like the winners here - the others are either dead or will be dead. (And HP-UX is starting to smell - would somebody _please_ finish that port? I don't own any PA-RISC hardware so I can't finish it.)
• Moderate this up. WAAAY up. Even if you don't agree - those who browse at 3+ should see this and have a chance to respond.

"The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time."

Re:it's only a matter of time

[jihad23]

Here are the simple instructions for upgrading WinNT hardware:

Replace HDD? Reinstall WinNT...

Well yes, if you're replacing the drive the OS is on, of course you'll be reinstalling. Otherwise you won't.

Replace Motherboard? Reinstall...

Not necessarily. I've replaced motherboards in NT boxes (both server and workstation) on three occasions - two of them included new processors as well - and I haven't had to reinstall the OS because of it. Granted, the boards/processors were similar to what I had previously. If you're making a major change, YMMV.

Replace Video Card? Reinstall..

I'm really not trying to sound like an NT advocate here, but that's just silly. You're doing something seriously wrong if you have to reinstall the OS because of a change in video hardware/drivers.

Installed new software that modified any networking or display settings? Reapply service pack X.

Display settings? You're joking, of course. The only time you have to reinstall a service pack is if you need to take files off the original NT installation CD, ie: reinstall networking or something.

In theory, NT+SP4 should support AGP as well, but I was unable to get it to work. I was told it was because I'm running a non-Intel processor (AMD), but I don't know how accurate that is.

Turn on, log in, burn out...

Linux sales only

[wouter]

The article points out that Linux Sales are in the lift. This means it doesn't include ftp'ed installations, or multiple installations of one bought Linux distribution. One might wonder how many servers are actually running Linux.

On the contrary, IDG might as well define Linux as an server OS, including sales for Linux sets that are used as a desktop system.

Is there a guess about the actual usage of server Operating Systems, used in businesses?

Keep in mind...

[zeck]

There are many distributions of Linux. There is only one NT.

Re:Keep in mind...

[zeck]

In the same spirit, here's one I wrote just now: "Keep in mind, there are too many Windows-using lamers posting these days, and they ALL suck"

I don't use windows. I thought maybe I would remind you that while Linux has the second spot in terms of total sales, that is divided up among many unique distributions of Linux, with different properties and functions. Windows NT, on the other hand, represents a single distribution which still has more sales than all the Linux distributions put together. I figured I would save bandwidth and time by merely posting the one line, but I guess I was a little bit too subtle for some of the less intelligent Slashdot crowd.

Re:Keep in mind...

[zeck]

Which one is the one?

The Microsoft one. While Microsoft does have different versions of NT, it is important to note that Microsoft's sales of NT managed to beat the combined sales of all of the Linux distributions.

Did you even read my post?

[zeck]

Yeah, thanks for repeating yourself, I didn't understand you the first time.

Evidently not. And from the rest of your reply I infer that you didn't understand it the second time either.

Trolling for Jesus (or even Scooby Do) I can cope with; trolling for MS is a bit too much. Go work for Mindcraft or something.

I do not 'troll' for anyone. As I said quite clearly in the second post, I don't use Windows. I don't like Windows. I was just pointing out for the shallow-minded folks that the apparent victory of Linux was somewhat hollow and that Linux still has a long ways to go to catch up in popularity with WinNT.

CD still my favorite

[NuclearArchaeologist]

Untill I master Debian's deselect by ftp, I get my updates from linuxcentral.com. For about ten bucks (two or three for the CD, the rest is shipping) you can have whatever distro you want delivered to your door. I feel more secure with that CD in the drawer, though it's rare I have to use it.

Red Hat and others like them are not kidding themselves. The service model has real potential. Think about all the money large institutions now spend keeping their networks of incompatible and closed source software interoperating. Think of the services that small businesses want, but could not afford. Much of that work could be done with a free operating system on commodity hardware. The folks at Red Hat will be happy to tell you how. The training their folks recieve will be useful long after Win9x and Win200x are forgoten because everyone owns the source. No one really tollerates a flake for long.

"IP Aliasing under NT"

[alexhmit01]

No charge, been available since AT LEAST NT 3.51 (I've never used NT 3.1 or NT 3.51). My Linux box is currently offline (idiot friends wantign to rebuild it then forgetting it) so my NT 4.0 Workstation is answering it's IP address and picking up my e-mail.

No charge. No difficulty.

It is available under advanced for TCP/IP properties (have to find the little button).

IIS lets you graphically assign different IP addresses to different links.

Not saying that Linux numbers aren't Deflated (they are), but IP Aliasing isn't a separate machine. Also, this is a report on SALES, not uses. They're figuring out where the money is going.

Linux numbers are deflated. However, that doesn't justify confusing ignorance with NT as flaws in NT... NT has enough flaws without your adding some...

What do you mean I need to reboot to setup my printer?

Alex M. Hochberger
MCSE, CCA

Linux and Sun and NT

[Listen Up]

There was an early post about a college student using Linux but having NT installed everywhere on his campus. I am also a college student and it is the same way here. There isn't 1 single Win9x machine anywhere on campus. They use NT as the client, NT as the server, and Netware, VMS/VAX, and Digital Unix for everything else. And I am at a cutting edge engineering college, so please do not pretend to bash my school.
The Linux numbers are nice, but also interesting. Where are these Linux boxes? ISP's? Industry? Government? I can tell you for sure that the government runs NT and SUN. NASA uses Solaris as it MAIN OS, including the International Space Station, most industry uses a combination of SUN and NT. I am sure that it is out there, but it would be interesting, and I do mean real instances and numbers where this data is coming from.
And on another note, there was a post earlier about SUN having problems when the server market collapses? Are you people on the same planet?? Solaris runs on Intel hardware very nicely, with the new Solaris 8 being extremely fast compared to Solaris 7 and much easier to use and administer. Solaris is even ready to go the instant Intel's 64 bit chip comes to market. Sun isn't stupid people and I cannot see in a million years how Linux would defeat Sun in their own market. NT maybe, but Solaris and Sun are extremely venerable. For example we have an approx. 12000 student campus and the university was required to move everything to PeopleSoft. There was a huge decision to make. Should we use NT or should we use Solaris on Sun hardware? Sun won hands down. Since PeopleSoft required an Oracle database, which was already on our UNIX system here putting everything on Sun was a no-brainer. I remember when Linux was brought up there were a few smurkes, and that was it. So, when server markets are compared it is very important to compare all markets that apply.

linux will never, EVER outsell NT

[Travoltus]

It's as simple as this. Linux is a freight train. Big, fast, agile and sexy. And it can carry a hundred times the load of a NT server. You only need one to handle a bunch of data. A single Linux server can be an email server and a web server. All high volume.

A NT server is a volkswagen. Small, crashy and unsafe. To carry data on it, it is wise to have a bunch of NT servers working together. Like distributing a freight train's load across a buncha VW's. No NT server could survive ten seconds being a high volume mail server AND high volume web server.

In short you will need two or more NT servers to do the tasks that one Linux server can do. NT is inadequate specifically to make people buy more NT licenses. Hundreds of bucks a pop. Linux is free, or $80 with a redhat support agreement, and one server can do several types of high volume serving tasks at once.

Let's put it this way. If we count the number of NT servers doing one task, as 1 point, and the number of NT servers doing 2 tasks, as 2 points, and then apply the same standard to Linux, Linux will equal NT on a 1 to 1 ratio, because NT typically is only strong enough to perform 1 kind of task, while linux can be seen handling big ticket stuff like mail serving and web serving all at once. Not to mention DNS.

Also, linux sales will be artificially deflated because one copy can go on a hundred machines. Legally.

IOW the company with ten Linux servers is going to be heavier in the wallet than if they tried to do the same job with NT, which would take twenty servers and a site license from hell.

Customers bad for MS!?!

[re-geeked]

"Last, but not least, this =may= be good news, in the longer-term. If people are buying NT in vast quantities, NOW, then they are unlikely to upgrade to Windows 2000 in a hurry. Too expensive to make that kind of move. These figures may, therefore, be good for Microsoft right now, but they might be killers for their sales, later."

I think Microsoft themselves have admitted that the vast installed base presents a problem -- they have to keep selling people stuff they already have.

As for the numbers being confusing -- indeed. What I'd like to see are the following:

Chart of OS unit sales in 99, 98, AND 97. This would tell us what was not said in the article: did the flat share for NT represent a cooling off? I expect that NT's share _had_ probably been growing steadily.

Chart of OS $ sales in 99, 98, AND 97. This would tell us whether NT has kept share by dropping prices (I think so, if I remember events of the past year correctly) or despite raising prices. We'd also be able to see the Linux $ growth more clearly, and see whether popularity = ability to command higher prices, which many suspect is not the case with commodity open-source.

Microsoft must be frustrated as hell: they spent all this money to get into the high-buck server OS market, only to arrive after Linux has turned it into the low-buck server OS market!

Re:it's only a matter of time

[commanderfoxtrot]

I'm a 'normal' enduser in a university environment, where NT is used almost exclusively, for the desktop machines. The machines are on all day all term, and are fairly reliable. Granted, with complex Word and Excel documents, and running Netscape, the machines crash occasionally.

However, most users, with simple essays, probably haven't had a crash in their entire time here.

I'm all for Linux (I run it at home), but for the average desktop user, NT presents a reliable cohesive environment.

The real market in the real world is that of the office desktop. Enterprise capability will not impress those who do the actual typing. At the end of the day, being able to handle xxxx ftp requests per second don't actually change your words per minute, and that's what Office and therefore Windows is about.

MS needs Linux competition

[gfecyk]

The various distros of Linux became this popular, not because of marketing or word of mouth or whatever, but because Linux has evolved and can continue to evolve. The other platforms referred to, especially Netware, haven't. You could throw a whole TCP/IP suite on top of Netware and make it look like an Internet server, but it still hasn't changed since Netware 4.x introduced NDS five years ago. Its age is showing.

NT, on the other hand, has also evolved, even if only to overtake competition from Novell and the *ixes. Despite what most of you all think, M$ programmers do not sit on their laurels all day and rake in the dough, but rather they tweak and twiddle with NT constantly trying to improve performance. ISAPI and ASP are results of this tweaking.

Of course Linux coders do this too. Java Servlets and JSP are also examples of this tweaking. You don't see this on Netware or anywhere else.

The way I see it is M$ will continue to improve NT/Win2K even if they break older stuff along the way, and even if only to beat competition from GNU/Linux. One thing Linux will do for sure, is ensure continued development of NT/Win2K.

Something else the article doens't figure...

[Col_Panic]

Is the fact that NT, and Linux for that matter, tend to have more single units sold because they are typically used on smaller systems that distribute the load. My company uses 5 "front end" servers running Linux that might be handled by a single Solaris server. One 256 processor Solaris install will do the job of literally hundreds of NT or Linux boxes.

For NT, this factor is especially important. For instance, I am running Samba, DHCP, BIND, HTTP, MySQL, AppleTalk and Oracle on one office machine that started as a file server and just got more and more stuff added on it. On a Dell 4200 like this, running all this stuff on NT would be unthinkable. Multiple services on NT blows real hard, you almost HAVE to run a separate server for each service. Thus were we using NT, we would have at least 4 installs of NT to do the job of one Linux machine.

Taking this into account, along with the "free downloads" factor, the numbers start to get even more meaningless. I think the key for those selling Linux is to get manufacturers to preinstall it. The only copies of Linux I have ever bought have been computers that have Linux preinstalled (e.g. Dell).

???

[autechre]

I think that virtual servers count just as much as separate machines. If they're using IP aliasing, then it's almost the same as _having_ separate machines (there are a few differences, but to a web browser, they're not apparent). I know of at least one web hosting place that has 11 different clients' webservers running on one machine...I would think that this certainly counts as not simply one server.

Besides, there are probably many small organizations (like mine) which didn't buy Linux, but instead downloaded it (I don't need phone support, I have a LUG!) I have 4 servers running Linux, and one of those servers has 3 aliases (so by my counting, that's 7 servers). Servers like these were not counted at all in these statistics.

I doubt that Linux verdors charge extra for people using IP aliasing, but I'm betting that if NT has a similar feature (does it?), there's licensing fees to be paid for using it. So, I would say that the Linux numbers are DEFLATED, for the factors of freeness and aliases.

Exposed code?

[whome]

This is the first time I've seen the term "the programming code is exposed" used. Will this be a new definition to be used beside "free" and "open source"? Will there be an "exposure initiative" to determine which licenses are sufficiently exhibitionistic?

I say yes to all of these questions, and to express my enthusiasm for the exposure, I will now moon Slashdot: ( | )

Nuff said

[348]

Nearly twice as many copies of Linux shipped last year than in 1998, and it grew at roughly four times the rate of the server OS market as a whole.

Solaris?

[348]

Sun--which makes money off server sales, as well as services--apparently believes free software has its advantages. The company decided to drop the license fee for copies of the upcoming Solaris 8 running on computers with eight or fewer processors.

When did this happen? This is the first I've heard of this. Are they going to cover Slowaris under GPL?

NO! You have it backwards

[348]

.#2 in comes only it then even and, away given be to has which Linux unlike, it for charge can they so better is NT, backwards it have you.

Software Industry Margins

[rhmiller]

I think the most interesting point here is that although linux had 25% of number of units sold the amount of revenue from Linux is nonexistent compared to the revenue MS generated with NT w/37% of units sold. This has to be a warning shot fired across the bow of all software companies that downward pressure on software margins is on the horizon and I don't mean a little bit of downward pressure. Of course this is really good news for the consumer. You might actually get your money's worth finally. But I don't think M$'s revenue stream is going to remain intact forever. I would guess it will still take another year before you see the effects in the M$ revenue stream.

Unacceptable.

[spaceorb]

I don't care what this article says, I don't care about all that scientific mumbo jumbo, I still think Linux is #1.

Linux is #1 because:

1) I use it. NT sucks.
2) I know it, and you know it, the American people know it...
3) This article publishes false information only to attract Slashdotters for their banner hits.
4) VA Linux and RedHat had IPO's, Microsoft only did that once. And that was years ago.
5) I use it. NT sucks.
6) I can rpm!

So you see, Linux must be #1. There is just no other way around it. You can keep your scientific statistical mumbo jumbo studies, but I have a feeling that Linux is #1. I have just stretched out with my feelings, and that is the only way to bring down Microsoft.

Re:it's only a matter of time

[Kailden]

"I'd say that NT is good for the enterprise environment."
As long as you are talking about desktops, not servers! UNIX-based machines are much more reliable, IMHO, in the server arena.

higher in SALES

[the31337lc]

which has nothing to do with useage. most people I know
DOWNLOAD linux, and that doesn't count in their silly survey. also, lots of people buy one copy of linux and install it on a bunch of their machines, so linux SALES makes it look like a lot fewer people are using it that actually ARE using it.

moderate this up! it is important to realize this!

What do the numbers reflect?

[jpenny]

I don't like the IDG numbers for several reasons:

• They count only (some) commercial sales, without ever announcing which sources are included. I.e. are cheapbytes, etc counted? How about SuSe and other non-US based distributions?
• They make no attempt to scale sales into installs--remember each linux sale can convert into a very large number of installs.
• They make no attempt to count downloads.

I suspect that these combine to vastly underestimate the number of linux installs, although probably not revenue.

Moreover, the CNET story says Corel sold $3.2 million worth of Linux in 6 to 7 weeks. These may have been counted as desktop rather than server, but it strikes me as very odd that a single, latecoming distribution, available for a very narrow window of time, had a market equal to 10% of the supposed total (server) market!

Misleading numbers

[geekoid]

It would have been nice if he got some numbers, from the major FTP sites, of the amount of FREE Linux server downloads there where last year. When you consider the price difference between Linux and NT then the dollar numbers in no way reflect the number of users.

new marketing strategies

[leroybrown]

mandrake in a box of cereal... that would kick ass.

too bad no real tracking

[Bad_CRC]

with all the free downloads, it's just too hard to get REAL numbers of linux users, especially on desktop users.

Re:too bad no real tracking

[Simson#]

But this thing was about the servermarket. Since Linux can run on almost any hardware a future migration from the x86 platform will be easier. A company in groth may start using a PC based hw and move to more complex/expensive hw whitout loosing in backwards compability. And yes any comparation between free and comercial software will be injust. One must also remember that the licencing fee /purcasingprice is only small amount of a systems lifecosts.

MCSE Certified
Simson#
has completed the coursework
necessary to be recognized as
a Minesweeper Consultant and

I know they're not talking about desktops

[Bad_CRC]

but it's ok to have tangent thoughts every so often. :)

This story just made me think of the fact that any time they show these numbers, they talk of sales figures. Well, I'd venture the number of people using linux (even in servers) is much more than twice the number than those who have purchased it. Not only can you download for free, but you can install on multiple systems from the same CD (which you already knew) and I don't know why people wouldn't do that. This makes sales figures seriously flawed as a means of measuring total overall usage. "Microsoft makes more money before the morning coffee break every day of the year" than all the purveyors of Linux made in the entire year" Because every NT system has purchased a copy of NT - that's not true with linux.

I personally care more about the desktop market, and I'd like to see some real figures of linux boxes in use, instead of copies of linux sold. I run 3 linux boxes, and since I'm a cheap bastard I didn't buy a single copy of linux retail, so my 3 systems aren't being counted. they should be.

Linux and the next wave.

[bineronbrain]

I hope I won't be moderated too far down, but I hope the following is at least somewhat relevant. Does any one have a feeling of dejavu. When IBM disclosed the standards for its base hardware architecture, It paved the road for colones that used an open standards to open shop and give end customer a wide variety of choices, yet at the same time is basically inter-operable. (At that level) Now Linux is the new open standard that is paving the way to new opportunities as evidenced by VA LInux, Red Hat, etc. As for prospect of profit, I think like the colones most will have very low margines. A few will grow fairly large like Dell, Compaq. So, The Linux Revolution is paralleling what happened with the PC revolution. The end result of standardization, lower profit margin, more choices for end user. The next battle field will be next level up. Though it is uncleared what it is. Applications is going to change drastically too

This is server SW licenses; *not* server shipments

[Army No Va]

This is server SW license sales. Which includes preloads, CDs and upgrades to existing installed Linux server SW licenses. Does not include copies or downloads or throw-aways.

Given Linux's business model, one should not expect much revenue from the OS...ever. (ref: Bob Young's goal about collapsing the OS market to $500m from several billions).

What is more interesting is how much new HW (units and revenue) that goes with this. And of course, these unit numbers are great news for SW middleware providers and services companies as it represents a great expansion of opportunity (and no MS and BackOffice to compete with!).

Army No. Va.

NT 2000 and Linux

[justharv]

It'll be interested to see what happens when NT (windows?) 2000 comes out. I predict Linux will eclipse NT within the next 12-18 months. (It may have already eclipsed because of ftp downloads).

Go NT!

[onyx00]

Ha! To hell with Linux! It's takes skill to make an OS that after crashing and displaying the blue screen then crashes again at the blue screen. :-)

what's so great about "capitalism"?

[prettyharmless]

i'm replying to this because you at least had the guts to log in and post as yourself, unlike mr. or ms. "linux users should be butchered".

of course, you are welcome to have whatever opinion of linux you want. however, i love linux, freeBSD, and the whole open source movement, and can't help but defend it.

yes, it's true that capitalism is all about making money, but what's so great about that? with companies like microsoft, it has not resulted in a better product (not in my opinion, anyway).

the idea behind capitalism and free-market enterprise was that through competition for the consumers' almighty dollar, a better cheaper product was supposed to result, and consumers were supposed to benefit.

personally, i don't buy into the idea of "social darwinism", which, btw, is a terrible injustice to darwin himself, or survival of the fittest within society. herbert spencer (1820-1903) was the main proponent of this idea, which stated that those who were not successful in society were obviously just innately inferior. many people of the time were very eager to see this idea accepted, because it could be used to justify discrimination on the basis of race or economic standing. factory owners felt more justified in exploiting their workers, whites felt more justified in mistreating blacks, etc..

now to get back on topic a bit...

capitalism may be about making money, but Linux isn't. certainly there are many people who want to make money from linux, and i would like to see many of them succeed. i also want to see linux make enough money to support continuing development and improvement, which it obviously is doing.

but i think that for most of the people who develop linux and open source software in general, it is not about money at all. it is about taking control and creating a product with the features that they really want and need, and then sharing it with others. in turn, they benefit from any improvements that anyone else has made. this whole system creates a sense of community and product loyalty that definitely can't be found within big corporations full of "suits" and PHBs. none of this has a whole lot to do with capitalism, and i for one love that about it. there is no other way for a technically-oriented computer-lover to get such a wealth of development tools, for example. especially so inexpensively. so, linux and open source are about benefitting the individual, not about making profits for a large corporation by screwing the individuals.

made by the people for the people!!!

as debian would say, when code matters more than commercials.

'kay, i'm done.

--christy mccarthy

The real reason linux lags!

[Masked Marauder]

The numbers in the article reveal the real reason why Linux hasn't captured more market share. They (you know, the ones who control everything) know what would happen if everyone switched to Linux; $5.7 billion would evaporate from the GDP. Markets would collapse, we'd all be standing in soup lines and the penguins in the zoo would be all be murdered.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Reliability of software running on dodgy hardwa

[southpolesammy]

I know this may be a simple example, but I had a dual-booting Linux+Win95 system with a broken S3 Virge card that had issues in graphics mode but would run fine in text mode. Since Win95 requires graphics mode to use the majority of its functionality and Linux doesn't, you can guess what OS ran most of the time.

CNET is wrong.

[jerry-normandin]

Cnet is baking there numbers on people who buy Linux. When you are "connected" well to the internet there is no need to buy it. You can download it and burn you own CDROM. At least that's what I did!

CNET is wrong.

[jerry-normandin]

Cnet is backing there numbers on people who buy Linux. When you are "connected" well to the internet there is no need to buy it. You can download it and burn you own CDROM. At least that's what I did!

We gouge more users before 8am...

[mwshaffer]

From the article:

"Microsoft makes more money before the morning coffee break every day of the year" than all the purveyors of Linux made in the entire year, Kusnetzky said.

You say that like it's a good thing. Who in the computer industry or the economy at large benefits from this situation except a relatively tiny number of stockholders and employees of Microsoft corporation? For what reason do we herald the fact that one company is sucking this much revenue out of the marketplace with no discernible benefits provided in return? Perhaps if we were to shed this bloated leech, IT departments and end users would be free to spend some of that money on the services and products of companies who can produce truly innovative and progressive products instead of on the same old mediocre code that gets worse with every release.