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Linux Server Sales to Reach $9.1 Billion by 2008
dunric writes "ZDNet is reporting that sales of servers using Linux will reach a whopping $9.1 billion by 2008. Annual revenue for Linux servers is expected to grow by a healthy 22.8 percent, compared to just 3.8 percent for the overall server market. Additionally, Linux servers will account for nearly 26% of all server shipments."
Methinks ZDnet published this prediction simply to exploit the predictable slashdot-effect response to such a story. I am projecting a 22% increase in ad revenues from their banner ads featured with this story at the tail end of 2004.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Everybody knows that people buy Linux servers just so they can install pirated versions of Windows on them!
Linux may be sitting high and pretty on the desktop market, but it has to create a usable UI to break on thru to the server market.
That's what the adverts on Slashdot say, anyway
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Who will be able to predict the market in 2008? With spam, viruses and hacker attacks escalating, and Longhorn due to be released... who really knows what the market will be like then?
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
The parent post is maybe not so far off the mark, though i'd like to posit a slightly different way of looking at things. I believe the situation would be clearer (for once!) if we wrote GNU/Linux instead of Linux.
Linux is just a kernel. Another child post mentioned it has good hardware support compared to solaris, i'm sure there are some other good points (e.g. a lot of architectures supported, embedded apps, a formidable base of experienced open-source developers, etc.,) that could mean Linux wouldn't just die if Solaris became free/Free.
But what most people think of as Linux, and what is in fact the largest part of, GNU/Linux is the set of userland tools we use. From the basics like bash, tar, grep, sed, awk, etc., to the compilers (gcc, etc.,), and up to the desktop level tools (KDE-family, Gnome-family, mozilla, openoffice, and so on).
Many of these tools can/are(!) ALSO be used on Solaris systems as appropriate/preferred.
If the Solaris licence is as free as the parent post hypothesizes, then this future is great! We can have a GNU/Solaris system if we want, Debian could offer a Debian-Solaris option (in the same vein as the Debian-NetBSD port), we can use bits of Solaris to improve Linux... All grist to the Free-Software mill.