Windows Servers Neck and Neck with Unix Servers

BrainSurgeon writes "According to the Register, Windows based servers are now even with Unix based servers in terms of sales for the first time ever." From the article: "In an overall up server market, IDC counted $4.2bn worth of Microsoft Windows server sales on the back of 12 percent growth. Total Unix sales also hit $4.2bn in the period, IDC said, on 3 per cent revenue growth. Those totals left Microsoft and Unix systems holding 35 per cent of the server market each."

Comments

Okay so...

[LWATCDR]

What the heck is running the other 30%?
Netware and OS/X?

I'm suprised

[detritus`]

I'm suprised they didnt mention that Linux servers had the greatest overall growth with 35.4%, and that they're 10% of the entire market. Now if Microsoft hits the 50% mark then thats when i'll start believingthe whole Unix/*BSD is dead hype

Re:Pun?

[AmigaAvenger]

blade servers are VERY hot, at least compared to the density. A full rack of blades is nearly impossible, you simply can't cool the rack enough to run it. (most vendors don't tell you this, although IBM recently started admitting that fact)

By sales but not numbers......

[Alcimedes]

I wonder if this isn't more of a sign that OSS is making some headway. Linux server sales are way up according to the article, and they compare Unix and Windows servers based on cost.

My understanding is that more major server sales folks who are pushing some Unix flavor are trying to make their money on the Service that goes with the server, not the actual initial sale. In which case it would make sense that you could knock the price down on the Unix server that's running a free OS vs. the same machine that has a 500 CAL license for Windows 2003.

I wish they would have given us number of units vs. the cost of units.

This is just murky adspeak.

Re:Sales != volume

[kfg]

The movie studios use this trick to imply popularity all the time. That's why everything is trumpeted by gross sales and not tickets sold.

It only cost a nickle to go see Gone With the Wind in first run.

KFG

How accurate are these numbers?

[Husgaard]

I see a lot of servers being purchased with MS-Windows installed, but running Linux or BSD before they are put into production.

An example I recently was involved in: I work with a company doing software. Big and mission-critical systems. One big customer wanted a really big installation of this software. We recommended that this was run on either Linux, BSD or Solaris. Our customer had hired their own consultancy company, and these consultants were very pro-Microsoft. So the customer said "We need this to run on MS-Windows", and we said "Ok, our software can run on MS-Windows, although we cannot recommend it.".

So a big server park was ordered with MS-Windows preinstalled.

Then, as the project progressed, the customer also hired an Oracle consultant. This consultant said "I would not sleep well at night if these Oracle servers are running on MS-Windows. Other systems will give you more stable operation". So all the operating systems on the Oracle servers were scrapped, and Linux was installed instead.

Then, when all the servers were sent to a hosting provider, the hosting provider said to the customer "We see that while the Oracle servers run Linux, all the application servers run MS-Windows. We will be better at supporting this system if all the servers run the same OS, and you will probably have better uptime if running linux on the application servers too. If you don't mind we will install Linux on the application servers for you free of charge.". The customer accepted.

So while this big server park was purchased with MS-Windows pre-installed, all servers were running Linux before the system was put into use.

Not that far from the truth

[hayden]

The numbers would probably be even better for windows if it was measured by quantity rather than money. At most places, when a windows machine is bought it is bought for doing one thing and one thing only. You end up with a pile of windows boxes doing one thing and being mostly idle.

Unix is more typically loaded up, running as many things as the hardware can handle. When it starts getting too loaded then you buy another one (usually a bigger one).

We've recently bought two quad processor linux machines running vmware to run a dozen or more windows servers. Two linux sales, a dozen windows sales.