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Under a Big Blue Shadow
PenguinCandidate writes "Linux server market share numbers can be tricky, with HP touting itself as a leader and IBM garnering all the press. For one analyst, it's all about identity." From the article: "HP can say that it has led the worldwide Linux server market for 29 consecutive quarters. HP can also say with confidence, thanks to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker from May 2005, that it outpaced IBM by nearly eight percentage points in quarterly revenue share. And yet, that Big Blue thundercloud remains. "
HP is developing plenty. I used to work for them (though not on linux), and you can see their influence everywhere, in the kernel mainly.
I serviced HP servers for years and always thought them to be pretty good. I especially think that the proliant servers provide a lot of bang for the buck. But sometimes I think that their image suffers from association with some of their less than stellar workstation offerings.
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IBM defends Linux in Court, which made by boss realize that Linux is a serious computing platform with (Thanks SCO!!!).
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IBM, in a move reminicent of drug gangs, got in trouble with their
illegal graffiti across san francisco and chicago; giving IBM the street cred they needed so badly.
So far I haven't seen HP breaking the law for Linux, so I can only assume IBM loves Linux more.This shows IBM's willingness to stand by linux within the legal system.
This shows IBM's willingness to stand by linux outside the legal system.
IBM definitely contributes more in the way of core kernel functionality (it's not just JFS, but also we have a number of engineers, myself included, who publically contribute on LKML and on ext2-devel on the ext2/3 filesystem). I'd have to think hard to think of any HP kernel contributors, besides the folks who work on the architecture-specific Itanium code.... (thinking....) Nope, got nothing.
That being said, I do have to give snaps to HP for employing Keith Packard and Jim Gettys. Keith in particular has been pretty much the only X developer that has been working on new core features in X11 for the past couple of years.
But in the final analysis, between IBM making 500 patents available, and all of the IBM developers contributing various enhancements to the linux Kernel, it's really not at all surprising that more people think of IBM when it comes to Linux.
HP donates in some way to about 55 projects, but only a few of them are linux specific. IBM on the other hand contributes to at least 162 projects, 44 of them specific to Linux. So IBM's Linux specific contributions alone number nearly as much as ALL those of HP put together. When you count in the projects that IBM works on that are not Linux specific, they stand head and shoulders ahead of HP in the most important measure: code.
Having used both IBM xSeries servers and HP Proliant servers all running Linux, I can say without any hesitation that the Proliant boxes are far better Linux servers. Their servers all work and work great with Linux. The IBM servers can be a real gamble, especially newer models, with devices not supported by most Linux distributions or requiring closed source drivers. HP has also done a great job porting over all of their Insight Management tools and agents for Linux. So it is certainly not suprising that HP is leading in the Linux server space, they simply have a better product. Also, there is no chance HP is getting out of the Intel/AMD server market. Is anyone willing to make that same bet with IBM, especially after the Lenovo deal?
IIRC, HP was also one of the leading sponsors if the "SCO Road Trip" last year...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I say FUD. HP is doing plenty to support linux, as well as development. They sponsor:
,GNOME,
- Gentoo
- Linux International
- Free Standards Group (the LSB is a workgroup of these guys)
- the OSS Institute
- OSDL, Kernel.org
- etc.
HP has many people hacking the linux kernel. Of course, IBM is doing great stuff as well, but you sketched the situation in a much too black & white way.
. . .every possible car on the market seems to have some obscure award it has won. . .
.a national not-for-profit organization, to honor innovators who have transformed space technology into commercial products," according to the Kellogg School of Managment at Northwestern) to say that it's "certified" with the Space Foundation; and implies that companies selling the same product without being "certified" are somehow pulling one off on the public.
Not a big surprise when you dig into the background of some of the orginizations awarding the prizes. It turns out that there's no law that says that GM can't found some orginization that gives it awards. Fancy that.
T-foam, now being marketed as the Tempur-pedic mattress, is "certified" by the Space Foundation. Ooooooooooo!
That means the product came out of the space program in some way; and that the company selling the product has paid the Space Foundation (". .
But here's the thing. T-foam hasn't been to space. It was a failure as a space product, one of the reasons for which is that it outgases toxic fumes at a pretty good clip.
Funny, they don't mention anything about that in the ads.
KFG
HP's UNIX Roadmap: 1) Advertise all the good things from Tru64 and OpenVMS as being available in the next version of HP-UX 2) Delay the launch of the next version of HP-UX 3) Kill off Tru64 and OpenVMS 4) Replace "Alpha" with "Itanium" 5) Sell overpriced migration tools to customers to allow them to port applications to HP-UX on the Itanic 6) Profit! Somehow HP = HP+Compaq = Compaq-DEC
You remembered correctly. Here's the story. Basically HP was boasting how they will indemnify customers if they signed a restrictive license and also was the main sponsor for the sco city to city tour. You gotta love big companies that can talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
My first comment would have to be an adjustment on the ultimate linus quote of "I think he is smoking crack". After thinking about it a little more, I would have to say that if you were buying the old HP stuff, and now you are landed with Compaq kit, then I could understand your point.
From a user of Compaq kit over the past 7 years, I would have to say that I think the quality of Compaq kit has gone downhill, and the quality of service in particular is now crap. All the outsourced helpdesks and everything else drives me bananas. The only reason why I am still buying it is that at least Compaq / HP is still more responsive than Dell, and are more flexible towards our business.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown