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

[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.

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.

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

[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: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.

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.

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.

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.