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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."
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.
Regardless this is fantastic news, it's been a many, many years since we've seen genuine competition in the OS market.
Really? I've been reading articles for YEARS about how Linux was Microsoft's biggest threat. Starting with those insane "Linux IPOs" in 1999/2000. And Microsoft pointed at Linux in the anti-trust trial. (ok, that was self-serving, but it ended up being true anyway). This isn't really anything new at this point. The numbers are just confirming it.
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?)
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
When they say things like this, they usually mean "relative to the first quarter of last year." So if all four quarters show a 50% rate of growth, the growth rate for the year would be 50%, not over 400% (1.5^4-1). They do things this way because the season can make a big difference in puchases, and so they don't want to muddle things by comparing different months or different quarters. The same thing happens for big tetail chains (Walgreens generally reports sales growth on the order of 14% each month, but they mean relative to the same month last year, not the month immediately prior).
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
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.
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.