Linux Market: Absolutes / Percentages / Trends

vincecate writes "In their 10-K filing, Microsoft says that Linux server units rose slightly faster on an absolute basis than Windows server units in fiscal 2004. To project the trends it is helpful to look at the percentages. Some Gartner Inc. statistics report Linux server unit shipments are up 61% giving it 9.5% of the overall market share. Windows has a much larger base, so it can get the same absolute unit growth with a much lower percentage. Gartner expects Linux to continue growing faster and have more than 1/2 of the new server shipment market by the end of 2008."

Comments

lies, damn lies and...

[gregski]

i'm not really sure how important linux server shipment numbers are. Many copies will be installed on multiple machines or just downloaded for free.

however it does show continual growth as a general indicater that linux is well accepted in the industry. i know my recent workplace was mostly windows on the desktop but had quite a few linux servers.

Unix replaced on large scale

[MadMirko]

I guess we see this rise mostly from the various Unix brands getting thrown out of companies. My own employer is replacing Solaris (50 big servers, 250 workstations) with Linux wherever possible. A RedHat server license might be damned expensive when compared to a Microsoft server (and yes, I do mean bulk pricing for "enterprises"), but it's quite cheap if you compare it to a Solaris machine.

Re:I like linux

[McCall]

This has got to be a troll, but some points are just plain stupid..

"have a root password since it was a single user machine" - This is totally normal, every version of Windows since NT has had this. Your probably confused because most peoples home Windows machine logs in with the administrator account. Most linux distro's can log straight into your user account from boot now too, IIRC RedHat 8 allowed this.

"X Windows loaded up and I was in Linux" - This statement just proves you know nothing about Linux or UNIX in general.

"CD ROM icon...where was it? Apparently I had to mount it manually" - IIRC RedHat 8 came by default with amd running, so I am starting to think you never actually intalled RedHat 8.

"it wants the stupid root password again" - BTW you better get used to this, Windows 2003 and above tries to enforce good administrator procedures by getting users to log into their own account, then "Run as..." administrator.

I am amazed that someone who has "studied the Linux kernel in depth" actually gave up on installing a distro because the automatic detection of the sound card didn't work.

"even though its autoupdate some how corrupted my kernel and I had to overwrite it" - Didn't your studying help solve this problem?

"I'm an excellent software engineer" - oh boy... I need to laugh... someone carry on for me please!!

Ahem... /me wipes a tear from his eye...

Surprised? No

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are we always shocked to hear that Microsoft might be losing market share to competitor X. When you have such a large segment of any market, you are bound at some point to see your lead eroded away.

Regardless of whether or not you love or hate Microsoft/ Linux, the fact remains that both serve a different purpose at the corporate level. While Linux still leads as the most popular platform for hosting websites, Microsoft's IIS leads in intranet sites for most major companies.

There is a place in the market for both Microsoft and Linux -- Microsoft's biggest problem is IBM and others push of Linux to the masses. Without heavy licensing fees, and with IBM's focus on small business consulting, they can easily modify Linux to suit individual companies wants and desires. This customization, currently, is not a key part of the Windows system. That is what direction, IMO, Microsoft should look in taking itself to compete.

(For the record, the offering of the new stripped down version of XP to many developing nations is one example of truely targetting your market).

Linux Must Become Easier to Install & Use

[mslinux]

Just yesterady, I got an email from a local sys admin about Win Server 2003. He said it wouldn't boot so he couldn't install it. To make a long story short, he was trying to boot the server with the MS Office 2003 CD (the office suite, not the OS).Later that same day, the same sys admin sent another email about needing to reboot the exchange server to "clear up" a problem.

The moral of this story is that *most* sys admins are not capable of installing or using Linux (or any other OS) unless it's dumbed-down to the childish level of the current Windows OSes.

Network appliances

[Technician]

I wonder if they count SOHO (small office home office) network appliances in the count. Many of the small easy to manage small network storage and connectivity appliances use Linux or OO software. Examples that come to mind are some of the broadband routers, the ActionTec dual PC modem, and the Buffalo LinkStation net attached storage and print server.

Windows OS prices and bloat keeps MS products off these embeded OS items, even though MS markets their embeded Win CE as a capable product for the embeded devices market.

Incompetent IT Workers

[Prior Restraint]

The reason incompetents don't get fired is because competent people cost more, at least from a hard-dollar perspective. Incompetence costs a company money, but in ways that are hard to pin down. It's far too easy for someone to shift blame; one of the keystones of Dilbert-esque companies is that it's virtually impossible to point to one person and say, "The buck stops here." Where I work, you can't even volunteer for the position. People think you're trying to make some kind of power-grab. Management wants to pretend the developers are all interchangeable cogs, shuffling us between teams as staffing needs dictate, and then they wonder why the overall result is mediocre.

Re:Wait for Longhorn

[Zapdos]

This would haunt Microsoft for a long time.
Where I work 80,000+ employees, we naturally have separate server and desktop teams. Making Longhorn networking incompatible with current networking, will make it impossible for us to migrate to longhorn.

Changing the required number of server and client systems to longhorn in order to have a working system would take at least five full weeks.

What company wants to be out of business for five weeks.

Re:Wait for Longhorn

[say]

Many large companies out there are running Windows on the desktop and connecting them to Linux servers. I think when Longhorn is released they may not have any choice about what server software to use anymore.

Well, my university has got only unix/linux backend servers, and mostly windows 2K/XP clients. If Longhorn won't play well with the Samba/IMAP solution on the unix servers, they aren't going to upgrade to Longhorn. I doubt MS will put themselves in this position. A _lot_ of major businesses will simply choose to not upgrade. They are concerned with getting stuff that works - in the cheapest possible way. Longhorn would have to include some _really_ powerful effectivity-producing functions if businesses are going to change their entire server system just to get it. And by the way, universities and colleges are probably really important to Microsoft, because they need young people to learn their products. Most universities (at least in Europe) use unix servers for everything. MS isn't likely to upset them too much. Universities have clever sysadmins who know damn well how to set up *nix graphical clients as well.