Windows Bumps Unix as Top Server OS

Ivan writes " Windows narrowly bumped Unix in 2005 to claim the top spot in server sales for the first time, according to a new report from IDC. Computer makers sold $17.7 billion worth of Windows servers worldwide in 2005 compared with $17.5 billion in Unix servers, IDC analyst Matthew Eastwood said of the firm's latest Server Tracker market share report. "It's the first time Unix was not top overall since before the Tracker started in 1996.""

Comments

Linux?

[Rob T Firefly]

From TFA:

And in another first, fast-growing Linux took third place, bumping machines with IBM's mainframe operating system, z/OS. Linux server sales grew from $4.3 billion in 2004 to $5.3 billion in 2005, while mainframes dropped from $5.7 billion to $4.8 billion over the same period, Eastwood said.

"Sales" being the operative word. How would one fit the free Linux options into this equation, I wonder?

Re:Article seems misleading

[squiggleslash]

That's correct:

And in another first, fast-growing Linux took third place, bumping machines with IBM's mainframe operating system, z/OS. Linux server sales grew from $4.3 billion in 2004 to $5.3 billion in 2005, while mainframes dropped from $5.7 billion to $4.8 billion over the same period, Eastwood said.

The major issue here is that GNU/Linux is growing in marketshare.

Probably worth adding that in many shops I know, every new server-type application that requires Windows gets its own Windows box, whereas people seem to understand the concept of "multitasking" with Unix and GNU based platforms, which is another thing that probably distorts the figures. That is, suppose my employer sells "StatisticStats" to Target, WalMart, and K-Mart. If we've written it as a web application, we'll deploy it one-(or-more)-CPUs-per-customer with all three (ie three servers) if we're doing it under IIS, whereas we'll centralize it unless it really starts becoming a resource hog if we deploy it under GNU/Linux.

I don't really understand why, except in that Windows does a lot to hide the underlying system to the point that it becomes easier just to throw a new box at each job than spend the time getting the different parts to work. It shouldn't be like this, IIS is pretty versatile, it just... is.

Re:Servers

[Syberghost]

What about server hardware sold without an operating system?

It's counted. They're using a combination of methods, remember, and that includes asking those surveyed "how many servers did you buy without an operating system, and what operating system did you put on them?"

Absolutely true, apples to oranges...

[tizzyD]

It is incredibly difficult to produce a "market" leader measure without some consideration to the way that the market is measured. Fundamentally, that method determines the leader. Consider the obvious:

• If you measure by units sold in a particular month, you would miss a sizable chunk of the market. How? Well, for nearly every 4 years, every system I installed at SMBs (small to mid-size businesses) was either Debian or Gentoo. As such, there was no direct cost associated with those units, but they were the foundations of many applications, file and print services, email services, directory services, databases, etc. More and more, as much of the functionality of a file and print server is commoditized, it can be handled more cost effectively by Linux, Samba, and other OS apps. Therefore, since these items incur no revenue in the market to a company, they would not be counted. Thus the distortion.
• If you consider units deployed, you have a difficult data mining challenge. How do you collect the vast amounts of data? As a researcher at times, you'd have to subscribe a number of organizations--we're talking hundreds--and then over the span of years, see what their deployment considerations are. From that measure, you can more accurately determine the statistically valid (within 5% perhaps) measure of deployed systems, more accurately demonstrating a market. It's a market, but in a different way, that is, for ancilliary products and services, upgrades, etc.
• If you measure a market by sales, you distort the market by not considering all forms of distributed products. When I install a MS system, there typically is required a number of ancilliary products that must be installed, including things like SQL Server (to hold the LDAP store). Are these sales counted as part of the market? Without Active Directory, you almost can't do anything else--SharePoint, Exchange, etc. Therefore, it is almost a component of the OS. On a comparable *nix, you would simply use a compliant LDAP system, but then, you would not consider it part of the OS. Considering the LDAP may be from another company, it further distorts the true market.

The market measure should be considered a dubious statistic, much like a political one. Raising the overall spending on education means nothing. Raising the overall spending per student, that means something. If you raise overall spending per student in constant dollars (inflation adjusted dollars), now you are really producing an accurate measure. The fact that most people can't understand basic comparisons--read the book Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos--leads to this fallacy of a measurement.

Re:How long

[zootm]

How about the 12 servers we bought from dell without an OS that had linux installed on them? I know those were not counted. Or the 100+ servers acting as mpeg2 video routers in the headends that were also bought without an OS that has linux installed as well.

Linux was listed in the ranking seperately (it came third, according to the article). Linux is not UNIX, so even if you bought it with Linux installed, it wouldn't have changed the relative positions of the two operating systems.

I agree that Linux would have come higher if the eventual OS installs of servers with no OS installs had been recorded, though.

Re:How long

[smoker2]

But basically, *nix servers outsold windows servers by $5.1 billion (that's UNIX and LINUX combined).

So I guess there is a little breathing space yet ;-)

Interestingly, if you RTFA and scroll down to the other links, you'll see "windows leads server OS pack for first time" last november !

dupe or astroturf - you decide ...