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The Economist on The Rise of Linux
nickco3 writes "The Economist is telling the business world that Linux is a worthy adversay to Windows and Unix. It is free, runs on almost any hardware, and generally more secure than Windows As result it is dividing the industry into winners that offer Linux (e.g. IBM and HP), and losers that don't, (e.g. Microsoft). Sun is probably doomed."
I think this sums up the consensus of the article -- Linux is coming, but not to the desktop.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Well, after years of dual-booting with Windows, Linux is the now the only thing going on my desktop, and I've gotta tell ya, I'm doing just fine (better than ever, IMHO). Maybe I'm dreaming? Or maybe the Microsoft fuddites don't know what they're talking about.
Thankfully, Linux has prevented Microsoft from dominating the low end server market like they wanted. From the low end, Microsoft was then going to push into the high end. Can you imagine how much Microsoft would be making off this area if Linux had not stopped them?
On the desktop, we just bought 5 rather powerful developer PCs for $600 each. Of that price, $150 was for Windows 2000 (not XP thank you). 25% of the price is a rather large part of the cost. The decision between Linux and 2000 was pretty close on these boxes and getting closer all the time. Pretty soon, developer workstations could well be all Linux with OpenOffice and the like. I think the competitive threat to Microsoft will soon restrict their desktop and office pricing.
Sun really needs to rethink their strategies.
Solaris for Intel? None of the sparc binaries run on it, it's not any faster than linux. Linux 1, Solaris 0.
Solaris for web applications... absoultely not. Tried and true OS for sure. Though web sphere, atg, web logic and most other large scale app servers have linux ports. java's relability will never exceed the uptime of an OS i.e. the JVM or app server will crash before the OS does. That then precludes having a bullet proof OS. Web applications need redunancy, both from a geographic perspective and application. Doing so requires a duplicate hardware investment. Not such a good deal with sun. Linux 2, Solaris 0.
Maintainance... will be cheaper with linux rather than solaris. The reason being that Linux and it's friendly varients are all freely avaialable. To learn and use linux is not a big deal, solaris on the other hand need solaris hardware to run. As a result of easier access to hardware and software (linux) labor costs go down because the skill sets require to administer and maintain linux and linux apps are more freely available. The same is not true of solaris. Linux 3, Solaris 0.
Solaris, and it's hardware IS good for massive multi-proc applications. Data Warehouse with Multi-tera bytes of data? Linux and Intel are not suited to such tasks. Large transactional databases that require nearly 100% uptime and reliability, i.e. the database is nearly as reliable as the Operating system. Solaris is the OS for that application. Linux 3 Solaris 1
Sun is no longer suited to playing in the high(er) growth markets of dedicated servers, web applications, IT support devices (dns, dhcp, network management) and such. Their role is increasingly being boxed into ultra highend applications where a large number of processors, ultra high reliability and what sun has stood for still means something. Where the applications are almost as reliable as the OS, and that the OS and hardware is required to be up nearly 100% of the time and never unexpectedly. The difficulty they face is that that the role just described is not in particularly high demand. As IT budgets continue to shrink - decision makers are going to continue to look to linux to solve their problems.
Linux is cheap - costs less to maintiain - and the hardware can be repurposed. Sun just can't argue with that. Sun needs a change of direction.
Too long have people labored under the delusion that one company MUST dominate the "computer market"... only because one company (Microsoft) seemingly *has* dominated. Just because one does today, doesn't mean that is the natural order of the market place. If anything it is unsustainable, as Microsoft is beginning to find out.
Sun makes some excellent high end gear, and in that market niche they are by far the largest player. They aren't even competeing with M$ in that space... and there is plenty of money to be made there. Sure CEO Jeff won't get to cross-check Bill in the teeth as often as he'd really like, but hey... that is NOT what Sun is in business to do.
Shake the current "one must dominate" worldview out of your heads /.'ers. It won't work. Microsoft's whole strategy, both internally and externally, is "For us to win, they have to lose." You WILL lose if you play that game with Microsoft because they play it better than anybody... but if you play a different game... Steve Jobs' game... where "we need to make something of quality that some percentage of the market wants and not worry about Microsoft" then you will do fine. There are billions of dollars to be had and significant percentages of market to be owned. Sure, you won't have dominance, but you don't really *need* it.
MS is really doing less and less right. They are increasingly getting more greedy with their licenses. There security is to be laughed at. And every three years they release a rehash of the same old product.
Eventually, (and soon), Linux will have the usability that 51% of the population will find acceptable, and it will landslide from there. There will be no reason to pay for Windows XY or Office YX. Software companies will start producing the little annoying things that exWindows users like for Linux, and everyone will be happy.
Just wait until MS starts writing software for Linux. That will be a funny day.
Sparc performance has always been and still is a laggard compared to the rest of the industry.
Not true. When the SPARC first came out in 1987, Sun enjoyed roughly a 4 to 1 performance advantage. Most PC's at the time were 16-bit CISC, and running between 4.77 and 12 Mhz. The Sun 4/110 was 32-bit RISC, and running at 20Mhz. The 386 came out shortly afterwards, and ran at a blistering 16Mhz. Intel PC's didn't take the lead until the Pentium rolled out. Even then, Sun's are optimized for different uses. A PC is like an F-16. It's really good at taking one person somewhere really fast. A Sun server is more like an airliner. It's really good at taking 300 people somewhere reasonably fast, and effeciently.
Temkin
Traditionally, the Economist has been one of the earliest media outlets to get technology. The first printed press reference to the Internet outside the tech press is from the Economist, ditto for Linux, but this time around they are way off the mark.
The reason Linux is so popular is not that is free. BeOS is also free. Linux is successful due to convergence of many different factors:
(1) Free
(2) Open source
(3) Unix compatible
(4) X-windows (X11) compatible
(5) designed for x86 (yes it runs on many other chips, still Linux is an x86 project from the get go)
(6) Multiple vendor supported
(7) Plenty of third party support
Moreover each of these things feed of each other. That is why Linux is so popular.
... SUN is the one who's not doomed.
;-)
Right. Note first that Solaris is highly POSIX-compliant, as is linux. This means that most software ports from one to the other with few if any problems, as long as you haven't used the private extensions of either. This isn't a conjecture; I and many others have tested this with our software. Portability between linux and Solaris is easy, almost as easy as between linux and *BSD.
And note also that Sun is actively supporting several linux distros. There was some confused news recently about Sun supposedly dropping their linux. What they actually did was drop the attempt to "rebrand" RedHat linux as Sun linux. This was mostly because customers got confused. And some of them wanted RedHat explicitly. But Sun seems to be going strongly into the linux support business, letting someone else supply the POSIX-compliant platform that runs on their hardware and has all of their software goodies available as options.
There is a strong contrast with Microsoft here: Microsoft has been moving strongly to a "total experience" platform which doesn't allow any software that isn't on their approved list. So if you're a software developer, you are facing a market in which you can only sell to Microsoft, on their terms. If you try selling retail, you'll find that your software constantly breaks, until you sign the rights over to Microsoft.
Sun, on the other hand, has a strong history of supporting independent software developers by sharing information about the innards of their systems while not requiring onerous licensing of any sort. As either a software developer or an IT manager, it's obvious which would be the wiser purchase. Why would anyone with half a brain go with a secretive, monopolistic computer system when there's another available that is open and cooperative?
And for a final note, we might observe that Sun has in the past objected to being called "SUN", since that refers to the Stanford University Network that they grew out of. They are officially "Sun", which isn't an acronym for anything. In todays environment of rabid copyright and trademark enforcement, it's important to get such things right.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I have to disagree.
What Sun sells is a scalable platform. It is a *hardware* target for developers to *write software* for. It is not *primarily* an Integrated OS/Hardware stack as you suggest. It is trivial to port human-readable Linux code to Solaris, and thus the success of Linux as a development platform does not preclude anyone's ability to implement that software on Solaris. If you can write good, MT code for Linux, then you can test it on a small sub-$1000 UltraSparc system (Running Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD... or even Solaris), or maybe a *little* bigger system if you're paranoid about testing CPU concurrency. Once compiled, that software's performance can be made to scale with the harware it runs on in a near linear way. Code for 2 CPUs and 1GB RAM, but the unaltered software will support 32x the load on a 64CPU 32GB RAM box, without re-engineering anything. Instead of worrying about the MPP (Beowulf) style clustering architecture and optimizing the software for that type of system (if it can even be done), Sun provides a stable ABI across all tiers of servers."Take away Solaris and Sun doesn't lead in anything." Well, that's true as far as you know anyways. It's a hardware performance niche that Sun occupies.
This is all very much subject to debate. First of all, you seem to have very narrow definitions of "performance" (which seems like you mean price/performance in comparison to PCs), and "features". IBM can't provide a platform with the scalability potential of UltraSparc. HP doesn't even have a hardware platform any more! Compaq killed Alpha, and HP killed PA-RISC, and even since buying Compaq, HP can't guarantee a niche for Itanium as they are *more* vulnerable to AMD Opteron competition (high-end to low-end) than Sun is to low-end-PCs in their workstation market. This situation is made MORE significant as Linux gains credibility as an OS. Sun is sitting pretty in the niche they currently occupy.--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
How is Sun the main loser if Linux hasn't replaced many system in the the "highest echelon"? Are telecom billing systems and airline reservation systems running on Windows? I doubt it. E-mail, web servers, file and print sharing. Applications for which Solaris is overkill. Hmm, that sounds like Windows territory to me.
Ownership cost is mentioned, and again Micosoft gets the spin due to lack of full description.
Mundie's collapse predictions are left completely unchallenged. Why does Ellison need a grain of salt, but Mundie does not?
Button-pushers like "cancer" and "nightmare" in the closing paragraph definitely set a tone for the reader's afterthoughts.
Trying to discredit Ellison's prediction by assuming the demise of Oracle on the basis of Mundie's questionable prediction is just wrong on many levels. There is more than one business model - I'll leave it at that.
Overall, this is less obvious than something that comes out of Microsoft-funded "independent analyses", but more it's more insidious too. Did Microsoft influence this author? Are Economist executives invested in Microsoft? Why the divide-and-conquer routine against Sun? Why start with such an optimistic view of Linux only to end on such a sour note?
Why in hell would you want to do that? If it's defective, it should be replaced.
Anyways, for me "Bells and whistles" is the same as the parent poster thinks: eyecandy, integrated webbrowsers, cutesy helpers, etc...
Hey I think he's actually on to something. Most people in the Windows world download pirated copies of software. There is some amount of illicit temptation about it. Like it makes you cool to have Office XP trial.
What we need are 'Leet' versions of GNOME and KDE, where you have to enter in a license key or get a crack for it, that way they can tell their friends what an uberhacker they are.
Linux will be gone (thank God) in less than 5 years. Microsoft and the TCPA will make sure of that. 1. Microsoft is an extremely competitive company, bent on domination. The Linux community is still fighting over which is better; Gnome or KDE. 2. A correctly configured Microsoft OS is inherently more secure than any distro of Unix or Linux. 3. Microsoft OSs will work with every piece of x86 hardware out of box. Linux still requires endless hoop-jumping. 4. Microsoft is in bed with all hardware vendors. Linux is not. 5. Microsoft adheres to industry standards. Linux does not. 6. Microsoft provides tools to administer Linux and Unix clients. The only too I've seen Linux offer to administer Microsoft clients is rdesktop. 7. Microsoft dominates 96% of desktop OSs. Linux certainly does not. 8. TCPA will eliminate Linux from the desktop, making it impossible for coders to write server applications for Linux servers. 9. Microsoft is politically savvy. The Linux community is not. 10. Microsoft Operating Systems are simply better in every aspect that Linux Operating Systems. They've had 2 decades to perfect the desktop environments. Linux has not, and will not, thanks to the TCPA. I've seen the future. Make Mine Microsoft.
"Your CPU came with a keyboard? What kind of ghetto deal is that?" -McSuede
What kind of conclusion is that? You made absolutely no support to that claim. Sun is a HARDWARE and software company. The could very change their business model to fully supporting Linux on their custom hardware. Businesses would jump at the chance to run Linux on proven server hardware and recieve support for hardware and software from one vendor (no more it's the hardware/no it's the software support bounce arounds). I think the rest of this makes sense but the Sun is probably doomed statement is just plain dumb and tacked on at the end.
Okay, here I quote the most deliberate piece of misinformation and propaganda:
In short, competition from quality products stifles innovation -- according to Microsoft. Commercial firms have no incentive to actually come up with products having more features, more stability, better documentation and ease of use than open source products because no one is willing to pay for such benefits?
Well, as they must be fond of saying over at Microsoft, "If you believe that, I've got an operating system to sell you."
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
The most obvious reasons why Microsoft dominates are because it locks down consumers, it's UI (although simple, and in my opinion, primitive) is appealing to the average Joe, and because it uses a very simple point-and-click interface.
The average user only needs his/her PC to write documents, play a few games, check e-mail and surf the internet. He/she does not care about the OS wars, and doesn't want anything at all to do with the command line. He/she wants an interface that's familiar to him/her. If the interface is too powerful or configurable, (or too different from the standard Windows UI) he/she gets worried. He/she does not want to write config files, and does not want to reinstall the OS that came with his PC. He/she also wants to use what he/she uses in his workplace. He/she does not want to lose any formatting, or have to install new products, or run an emulator. These are some of the reasons why Microsoft dominates.
Lastly, Microsoft has a huge edge, i.e. money. It uses this money to aggressively advertise and get the message out to the common man. Most users have not HEARD of UNIX/Linux. If Linux wishes to dominate the market, it needs some serious advertising. Also, more hardware manufacturers must incorporate Linux into their PCs, and distro companies must obviously convince the main manufacturers. (This is already happening, and I am glad).
Although Linux certainly satisfies my needs, I don't think it's SIMPLE and EASY enough for the average Joe.
Read my journal here.
"The easy way to evaluate the strengths of the companies mentioned is to look at how diversified they are (or aren't). "
Strength of company sure...
Strength of product, no...
General Motors is one of the most diversified companies in the automotive industry. But one could hardly call any of their vehicles superior.
Oh wait nevermind... the rest of your article is nonsense as well. Microsoft not doing fundamental research? Huh?
I don't think MS will go out of business in the near times, but as any other empire, one day it will vanish in the air.
However, the first step before MS starts loosing marketshae is loosing mindshare and it's articles
like this that make people start thinking that MS isn't a safe bet.
Right now MS is the market leader and most people just follow the leader: many people making purchase decisions just buy MS products because it's the market leader and it has an invencible reputation, even if their products are inferior to the competition.
As a mather of fact, many people just buy MS products and don't even look for alternative solutions.
However, this kind of articles are the first wave of change. Change the way as people perceive MS and IT market. It changes the invencible perception about MS as more and more people start beleiving that the day when MS will desapear is geting each time more closer...
OK, but if the machine has defective RAM and knows it, wouldn't it be nice to be told so by the machine, rather than having to trouble-shoot? As much as I love to try and solve mysteries, sometimes it's nice for the computer to give me a smack on the back of the head and let me know what the problem is.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.