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. "

Comments

Marketing changes the perception

[winkydink]

and obviously, IBM's marketeers are doing a good job. HP's still reeling from the fiasco of the Carly years and probably will for at least another year or two.

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not convinced the culture at the top has changed all that much since Carly. What makes you think otherwise?

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[ZephyrXero]

Well another important issue is IBM's more apparent commitment to both Linux and Open-Source. It may just be marketing for all I know, but we hear a whole lot more about IBM paying for this and donating that to Linux & F/OSS than HP.

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[arivanov]

Fiasco of Carly?

Complete and utter bollockssssss.... Fiasco of the Don Capellas cretinomoron - yes. Carly - no. Whatever people say about her any Compaq/HP shop can clearly tell you that during her reign the quality of hardware shipped drastically improved. If you have bought HPaq hardware over the last 6+ years you can clearly see the day when the cost saving idiot Capellas reign started. The quality of build immediately dropped to rock bottom. Passive cooling was replaced by cheap mexican fans which failed in 3-5 months, spec of the average box in fact dropped instead of rising. 512MB memory limit on a desktop down from 784 and thermal throttle on the CPU which effectively made it slower then the older models.

After that, during Carly it recovered to a more or less sane state - custom designed motherboards matched to the case instead of cheap chinese OEM shit, passive cooling assisted by the main chassis fan (an old Compaq TM), etc.

Whatever you say while I am not a Carly fan, she actually fixed a lot of the shit created by Don Cappellas. It would have been nice to see her go to be replaced by someone to improve further. Instead, she is being replaced by a Don Cappelas clone which means that all of us who buy Compaq are likely to have to look for an alternative vendor once again.

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[Nutria]

Why was this modded Funny?

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[njcoder]

" Well another important issue is IBM's more apparent commitment to both Linux and Open-Source. It may just be marketing for all I know, but we hear a whole lot more about IBM paying for this and donating that to Linux & F/OSS than HP."

That's what good marketting is... making sure people hear a whole lot more :)

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[njcoder]

"mexican fans which failed in 3-5 months"

The worst part about those fans was that noise they made that filled the server room.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLL LLLLLL!

Made it hard to concentrate. :)

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[AJWM]

As with anything large, it does take a little while for a corporate culture to turn around - and it has only been a few months. But the seeds of change were already there or Carly wouldn't have been ousted, and new CEO Hurd comes from quite a different background and has a rep for turnarounds.

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[Jeff DeMaagd]

For businesses, it is far easier to just go for one vendor than deal with half a dozen or more.

I have been buying name brand systems, used ones even, and really haven't had problems. Often, more reliable and quieter than I see/hear elsewhere. It is just a matter of being careful what you buy.

I really haven't found DIY systems that have better build quality than my Xeon workstations, finding one that is as good is rare, usually they are considerably worse. These I buy used because their value plummets after a year, but they are incredibly reliable and haven't given me any problems in the last eight years that I've been running them. I hope to get an Opteron workstation once those hit the used/off lease market.

Re:Marketing changes the perception

[bernywork]

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.

Less is more

[fembots]

To me, HP is a middleman doing anything profitable, while IBM sticks to one thing and tries to do it well.

Re:Less is more

[Ubergrendle]

Mod parent up. Its not so much about HP's recent performance, its about where its going. Can ANYONE explain to me their UNIX roadmap in simple, direct terms? Roadmap for Tru64? What's up with Itanium? Storage? WILL THEY KEEP THEIR IMAGING/PRINTING DIVISION???

HP is still a big profitable company, but they've lagged in innovation in recent years (thanks Carly). The article submitter alludes to some of HP's recent 'successes', but I suspect a thorough analysis will show market erosion in almost every product line. HP is losing ground on multiple fronts...they need to stop the bleeding.

Re:Less is more

[arete]

In more specific terms, IBM sells Linux and Linux servers and lots of other related solutions.

HP sells lots of servers that HAPPEN to be Linux.

Re:Less is more

[mmkkbb]

One thing? Which would that be? IBM makes hardware from servers down to semiconductors. Their software line spans PC development tools, RDBMSs, operating systems, and groupware.

Re:Less is more

[Noaccess0]

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

This is the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

For better or for worse, Haff said he believes HP has never made the same level of executive commitment to position itself publicly with Linux and open source the way IBM did

-mocheese

Re:This is the summary

[DarkMavis]

No surprise here as HP has historically had a tight connection with Microsoft. IBM has little to lose when touting their support for Linux. They don't like Microsoft anyway. HP on the other hand, with their huge PC division and Intel server division, has much more to lose. That's probably why you don't hear HP's executives talking up Linux as much as Big Blue's.

Market Share

[coop0030]

To be honest this article seems accurate enough. I didn't even know that HP was selling Linux servers. They definitely don't try to make it known, and do not get very much press if they do try.

IBM dominates the Linux news everywhere I look.

I think the biggest reason is that they do so many different things for Linux, and it seems they actually help the development of Linux much more than just selling servers.

There in lies the biggest difference.
HP = selling servers
IBM = developing new features in Linux, and selling servers.

Re:Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Market Share

[wishus]

HP is actually going to be contributing to Ubuntu. Of course, their reason is so that they can sell laptops that work flawlessly with Ubuntu.

Still, it's pretty cool. They laptops will come with FreeDOS (no Windows!) and you can get an Ubuntu CD from HP.

Re:Market Share

[Locke2005]

IIRC, HP was also one of the leading sponsors if the "SCO Road Trip" last year...

Re:Market Share

[jacoplane]

I say FUD. HP is doing plenty to support linux, as well as development. They sponsor:

- Gentoo ,GNOME,
- 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.

Re:Market Share

[njcoder]

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.

Re:Market Share

[darkonc]

They laptops will come with FreeDOS (no Windows!) and you can get an Ubuntu CD from HP.

Am I the only person who reads this and wants to scream ?? I mean, why can't somebody come up with proof that Microsoft is browbeating every major distributor such that they will not sell any average consumer a machine with Linux pre-installed? This is so, so, freaking frustrating.

I really want somebody to sue Microsoft bigtime over this massive restraint of trade practice.

(we now return you to your regular programming.)

Re:Market Share

[sasha328]

Actually, HP also has a fully supported Linux SOE for internal use. They call it LinuxCOE (common Operating environment)
Like others have mentioned, they do a lot of Linux development, but it's mainly to support their own platforms.
Have a look at their Linux website

(Disclaimer, I work for HP)

So What?

[HaFBaKeD]

When it comes right down to it, every company can use some pretty "impressive" looking stats to swing things in their favor. This is no different.

The aotumotive industry is the worst, every possible car on the market seems to have some obscure award it has won to help tout its abilities. In the end, its whatever fits your current needs/situation, ignore the hyped up stats.

Re:So What?

[kfg]

. . .every possible car on the market seems to have some obscure award it has won. . .

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 (". . .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.

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

I've always liked HP servers

[udderly]

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.

I just...

[Shads]

... want a nice big mainframe in my closet running linux.

The mere thought makes me wet whenever I say, "Linux Mainframe"

Linux Mainframe... ooh.

Re:I just...

[suitepotato]

If you want something like a Linux mainframe, wait till the mobo makers finally realize that getting in on the ATCA/cPCI blade server market at the low end, creating much less expensive systems that make efficient cluster servers in a box, is a good thing. Maybe a couple more years till we see it. I would love to be able to put one master board in and four or five drones in, an OpenSSI/K12LTSP server installation, and have powerful upgradeable central administration of hardware and software. I don't need IBM for that. I need Tyan, Asus, and so on to get on with it.

Re:Who contributes more.

[team99parody]

...another couple huge contributions from IBM:

• IBM defends Linux in Court, which made by boss realize that Linux is a serious computing platform with (Thanks SCO!!!).
  This shows IBM's willingness to stand by linux within the legal system.
• 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.
  This shows IBM's willingness to stand by linux outside the legal system.
  

So far I haven't seen HP breaking the law for Linux, so I can only assume IBM loves Linux more.

Re:Who contributes more.

[tytso]

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.

The reason is ...

[WindBourne]

that IBM is contributing heavily in the Linux arena. They have more coders in the kernel. Most of HP's contributions are about sales for HP. Good example is HP's drivers for their printers. They have not really contributed to lpr or cups. It would be nice if HP also did advertisements for and with Linux. So far, all that see is that "We sell Windows, and Unix. Oh yeah, some Linux too.". HP has hired some top ppl from Linux, but they did not make good use of them. They wished to keep a low profile so as to not anger the Windows ppl. Well, so what. Dell is eating HP for lunch when it comes to Windows, and will continue to do so.

Re:The reason is ...

[locutus2k]

I'm only partially in agreement with you. As far as HP having more units running linux in the field, I think that might be true, but what about the quality and price of the units.

The saying used to be 'No one ever got fired for buying an IBM' and there is a reason for this. The IBM boxen are a very nice, well designed box. I just purchased an xSeries 246 over the less expensive HP model. The reason for this is simple. IBM has been around longer than I have, and have a track record that I don't think is matched anywhere else in the industry including Microsoft. IBM also contributes heavily to the linux community so if you call IBM for support, they actually know what linux is.

Another point that has become somewhat of a sore spot that companies like HP and Dell are going to have to learn quickly is support. When I call IBM, I get someone with a brain who isn't just reading from a script. All too often when you call a company like HP/Dell you get some foreigner who is reading form a script, and hangs up on you when you deviate from that script.

I can't think of a single admin that wants to be treated like some idiot user when their shiny new $15,000 server just decided to put its fingers in its ears.

HP may be moving more units that happen to have Linux on them, but I strongly feel IBM's presence is going to be here for a very long time to come because the folks at the top have a brain in their skull, and are concerned with more than the bottom line.

Re:The reason is ...

[WindBourne]

Well, I have worked for both companies, so I personally have to say they both have good hardware. Each has had some line that left a bit to be desired, but overall, still good equipment.

But with that said, HP is acting more like the IBM of old, while IBM is acting like the HP of the 80's.

IBM is working with groups and pushing what they are into. I agree that their customer support is better than others. Sadly, they keep selling off their lines.

HP, OTH, is just wanting to sell hardware and it seems like they have killed their engineering side and pushed things with the sales side. IOW, they are taking a road that will allow for short term profits, but long term will kill them. You are not the first that I have heard say that HP cust. cupport is now abismal. That is sad. I knew some of the folks in Fort Collins, who did that work and they were sharp.

how does the song go? "I need a hero"?

Code talks, BS walks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Selling hardware is one thing, but being a "big whig" in the OSS community means something different: it's all about the code.

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.

HP Fails at Marketing IBM fails at doing real work

[razmaspaz]

The analysis is interesting. The article says HP failed at marketing. For all the criticisms that Carly turned HP into a make nothing market everything company, this article would seem to refute that. That in fact HP was doing lots with Linux and reaping the rewards in sales, but failing ot let the world know about it.

On the contrary (not that it is anything new) IBM is marketing the crap out of Linux.

I guess this is proof that if it didn't end up on Carly's radar she couldn't ruin it with marketing BS.

Tracking servers misses the point

[csoto]

IBM has become, at Gerstner's direction, a "global services juggernaut." Their support of Linux is not directly tied to a plan to sell more Linux servers. It is tied directly to their capability to provide comprehensive services through their Global Services division. It's a good strategy. That division is the bane of just about every other major tech services provider.

But, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

But HP replaced Carly with Mark GNU/Hurd! Surely that's gotta count for something?

Experienced opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

sigh of relief

[ohzero]

finally the day has come where huge industry players are fighting over who is more badass with open source. 10 years ago people would have laughed at this idea.

Re:Who contributes more.

[Atzanteol]

Street cred?

Dey were all like 'Yo! you be puttin' dis Windows on dat PC!' and I was like all 'What bitch? You be dissin my machine wit dat shiznit?!?' Den I got all Gentoo on their ass. Damn posers.

seems to me...

[tadd]

... that at this stage of the game "Nondescript Old Beige Box In The Corner" still garners the most Linux server installation title... but that's not good marketing I suppose