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Gartner: Linux Servers Booming
Tarantolato writes "According to a recent Gartner report, low-end Linux server shipments grew significantly in the first quarter of 2004. Part of this may be due to the comeback of the relational database market in 2003, where Linux growth was especially strong, while Windows growth was weaker. There is mixed news for Sun, who saw growing shipments but declining revenues in Q1 of 2004."
According to Gartner, revenue of Linux-based server hardware rose 57.3 percent over the first quarter, while commercial Unix server revenue fell 2.3 percent.
Is it just me or does 57.3 percent growth genuinely impress you as well? I can only assume the article contains a mistake since it claims 57.3 percent revenue growth for linux-based servers over the first quarter which means "in three months". This strikes me as unlikely, unless Linux is actually destroying everything in its path. Shouldn't this read year over year in which case the 57.3 percent growth happened in 12 months, not 3. Can anyone confirm for sure? Regardless this is fantastic news, it's been a many, many years since we've seen genuine competition in the OS market.
Linux servers are booming, Windows servers are bombing and crashing. It's hard to get caught up on my sleep!
This isn't Linux versus Windows -- it's SQL Server versus Oracle. Shops are choosing Oracle and then choosing Linux as the platform (given that it's largely irrelevant what platform it runs on). The submission implies that it was a toss up between Windows and Linux, and after choosing Linux they started looking around for a RDBMS.
He speaketh against our penguin overlord. Without Tux what will we worship? CowboyNeals nutsack?
I wonder what sort of increase the MacOS server market showed? It also means little if servers are being shipped with XP or even no OS, and being loaded with Debian after delivery. I doubt it takes into account systems built in-house either. Statistics show only what gatherer wants them to show.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Just for a point of comparison, I'd like to know. Linux grew 57 percent, Unix was down 2 percent, what about MS? (I'd just like concrete confirmation of Linux kicking Microsoft's fanny, OK?)
Copyrights have nothing to do with free market property rights, but are rather like government regulations about what people can do with information. But the GPL, has found a 'loophole' in these restrictions - and is far more accountable to free market forces. People who have closed software are going to continue to pay huge opportunity costs as the market takes off again.
I am not trying to undermine Gartner, but this poll seems to be inconsistant with the recent netDeck poll which stated linux hardware rose 31% as opposed to the stated 57% here.
Natural Selection: self-destruction of the poor and lazy
I swear every quarter I hear this same news story.
From 2001
http://librenix.com/?inode=984
The report shows Linux server revenue rising from 2,422,266,299 in 2001 to 9,142,634,360 in 2005 and total units rising from 543,778 to 2,610,235 over the same period.
End-user research done in 2000 presents a good picture of the real market share of Linux as a server operating system and serves to project the probable market share for Linux this year, as well as a Linux server forecast through 2005.
But... those Windows Server advertisements say that Windows server is so much faster... And the results are from INDEPENDENT and ACADEMIC sources?? Why would companies buy the inferior product?? Surely Microsoft would not lie? :P
I have definately seen this in the job market
1 year ago I was looking for DBA jobs, and hardly anyone requested linux knowledge/experience.
Now I'm looking again and I would say for 70-80% of the jobs I look at (DBA stuff) linux is either recommended or required. Linux really is making alot of inroads into the DB server market from what I see.
A Microsoft representative made the following statement at a press conference today:
"Where are you going? Come back! You'll all be doomed, DOOMED if you use Linux. DOOMED! After all, our studies, err, I mean independent studies have shown that Windows has a lower overall total cost of ownership. I mean, c'mon, Longhorn's coming soon. It will be better, we promise. It has Pallad-- err, Trusted Computing. Doesn't that sound nice? Trust? Can you trust Linux? You can? Fine! Be that way. We have FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS. We can by and sell your ass. Hmmppphhh!"
A followup press release attributed the remarks to an overly tight necktie.
Unknown host pong.
So do we like Gartner today?
Well this is bad news for innovation and copyright. Linux on the rise == Piracy on the rise. This is a sad day for us all. I hope this "rise" of Linux servers means people are buying the correct LICENSE from SCO to run Linux. Otherwise, we're all in trouble. SCO has given the world so much, when they invented Linux, and now nobody wants to pay for it and pretend its free. Nothing is free folks. Get on over to SCO and buy a license and sleep better tonight.
You're all a bunch of smelly ass hippies, and have no business using a computer if you don't want to pay for the OS!
Skipping the Linux v. Windows v. Sun debates. The main gist of the article is that there are more servers being thrown up at a significantly less cost.
To a very large extent, this is just the gradual realization of productivity increases. The scary side of the equation is the extent to which companies are pushing people out of the equations. The ever dropping margins means a tougher job market for slashdotters. Or, how should I say it. More work for lower pay.
The expectation of lower costs leads to scenarios like the one described where the company is trying to get by on one subpar admin, or they push their support staff to the brink with more servers than the staff can handle...without a good plan for installing or using the servers.
When I worked there, there were posters saying that if each MS employee converted 5 linux servers to 5 windows servers that MS could finally outsell linux in the server market. I SO wanted to take a picture of it but I didn't want to get caught.
The bottom line is this. The number of servers sold with Linux preinstalled is increasing. The sales of Linux built for multiprocessing is increasing. But, is it increasing enough to become a true competitor in the market. To say that sales are up 57% by revenue is mileading. Especially if revenue previously was crap. I could say my income increased 600% if I got a raise to about 12,000 a month. But there are tons of people who make 12,000 a month. Linux sales don't even scratch the big guys (or guy). If the revenue (and/or # of servers shipped with Linux) continues to increase at a 57% clip, then we will soon be seeing some drama in the market. May the penguins day come, and it's sun shine bright enough to blind the other guy.
It also means little if servers are being shipped with XP or even no OS, and being loaded with Debian after delivery.
I know in the past when ordering servers from Dell even though we order them with no operating system preinstalled the sales rep would ask what OS we were going to be using, presumably to gather just that sort of information. As for stripping windows and installing a Linux distribution, how often does this really happen on server hardware? On desktops, sure, but on a server? It's highly unlikely any serious hardware could even be ordered with a non-server version of windows, and if you're footing the bill for that, chances are it's not so you can just toss it and do a reformat as soon as the machine arrives.
It looks like the total Linux based DB market of $300M was just slightly bigger than the increase in MS based market (3% of 7.1b = $222m) Big percentage changes, but different market shares to start...
There's a much more detailed summary of the Gartner report up at com.com. The overall numbers are thus:
Total WW Q1 server revenue: $11.81 billion, +9.3% quarter-on-quarter*
That breaks down into:
Windows: $4.13 billion, +19.5%
Proprietary Unix: $4.02 billion, -2%
Mainframe: $1.7 billion, +12%
Linux: $1.02 billion, +57.3%
That leaves $.94 billion unaccounted for; I was thinking this chunk could be VMS and NSK revenues, but that makes it difficult to fit HP's 32.5% share of x86 revenues into the $.94 billion left over when you subtract it plus HP's $1.17 billion in proprietary Unix sales from HP's $3.07 billion total sales. (And that's ignoring HP's Q1 IA64 sales, which were very substantial.)
Of course all these questions are surely answered in the report itself, but I'm not gonna pay 95 bucks to find out.
*How do I know the figures in the com.com article are QoQ and not YoY? Because the Gartner summary (linked above) puts overall YoY revenue growth at 24.1%, not the 9.3% reported in the article. Which makes both the 57.3% Linux growth and the 12.5% Sun decline even more stunning.
They were initially purchased to run Windows apps. When the Windows servers were upgraded, I grabbed these two and put Linux on them.
So, four sales for Windows (two initial servers and the two replacement servers)
-and-
No sales for Linux
-but-
Actual deployment is 2 servers for Windows and 2 for Linux.
(That isn't 50% of our servers. We have almost 20 Windows servers because the apps don't play well with each other.) I expect there are a lot more installations like mine out there. The sales percentages (particularly the $$$) will not tell you the real picture.
Numbers of units really are better than dollar sales. You really can outfit 4 or 5 Linux servers for the cost of outfitting 1 Microsoft server. Every thousand dollars RedHat makes means a loss to Microsoft of about one million, so dollars to dollars comparisons mean little. A few years ago, Linux servers had about 12% of the market. If they are up 57%, they should now have about 19% (or if you do the math, 18.84%). Most pundits will say 'see, Microsoft is still winning, nothing has changed'. But, if the 57% increase happens next year too, and the year after that, then Linux will have 46.43% of the server market. One year after that, 72.9. Just more numbers to throw about.
Of course, you can't replace five linux servers with five windows servers. If you tried, you'd have...not enough servers. You'd need at least ten to twenty-five windows servers to replace five linux servers. :)
:)
Now, if you replaced five linux servers with five windows servers and four linux servers, it would look good for MS, which would apparently have more servers at that point, even though the linux servers would be doing 80% of the work.
nice to see it's growing, zeitgeist [google.com] still shows a pitiful 1% though
On the other hand, the Netcraft Web Server Survey shows 67% of the machines running Apache, and most of them run Linux or FreeBSD
At my university where I work in the IT department, if you would suggest a Windows server for anything today they'd have your head examined. Linux has become the defacto web and database server around here. It's not just that it's cheaper, it's better and you don't have to manage licenses which is a huge deal in a place like this where we can barely keep track of all the new machines that are constantly coming in.
I'm also very happy to see that when we place the order for personal computers for post graduate students, about 1 in 5 actually specifically requests a Linux workstation these days. That would have been unheard of just a few years ago.
According to an article at Tekrati Industry Analyst Reporter tonight, IDC is saying Linux Server sales grew revenue at 56.9% and unit shipments at 46.4%. Also, they have a report stating Linux servers near the $1 billion mark in quarterly revenue. You can get to the IDC release off the Tekrati article or go to IDC directly.
You really haven't seen much if you think that all data is housed only on enterprise class servers. I often have the distinct impression that most data is stored on old dekstop machines that never get backed up, and rarely get patched.
Depending on whose numbers you are going to believe, Linux already holds about 30% to 50% of the market, strangely the Linux share is always higher in areas where the numbers are not guessed but counted like in webservers where Apache/Linux holds a comfortable majority.
Have you ever searched a webhoster in Germany that even offers Windows? Mine stopped to offer it last year. Windows is dying there, and losing more and more:
look here
In Japan, the same picture:
stats
In a lot of countries, Windows on servers is already an exotic niche platform.
Webhosters don't want it anymore because the support costs aren't worth it and the added risk (a worm was the reason my webhoster stopped offering Windows) has to be paid somehow. Customers don't want it anymore because Apache gives them a much larger palette of availabe webhosters - thus more choice, lower costs and more competition among webhosters.
Windows just offers no real advantages to make up for all the license hassles.