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HP Software IBM Linux

Under a Big Blue Shadow 153

Posted by Zonk from the looks-like-rain dept.
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. "
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Under a Big Blue Shadow More

Under a Big Blue Shadow

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  • Marketing changes the perception (Score:5, Insightful)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:12PM (#12875525) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm not convinced the culture at the top has changed all that much since Carly. What makes you think otherwise?
    • 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 (Score:4, Insightful)

        by njcoder ( 657816 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @05:22PM (#12876119)
        " 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 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:33PM (#12875683) Homepage
      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.

      • Ok, someone is obviously abusing their mod points.
      • which means that all of us who buy Compaq are likely to have to look for an alternative vendor once again

        Isn't it better to look for the best machine rather than the best vendor?

        If you're just looking for desktops, why go with a branded vendor? Their whole motivation is to put together boxes with the cheapest working components they can find and sell them to you for a premium because of the logo on the box. That conflict of interest is part of the relationship.

        I have friends with vendor-branded comp

        • 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 a
        • They are cheaper to support...

          Warrantees and service agreements, etc.
      • I don't know these people... I only know Steve Jobs...
      • "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. :)

      • 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
        • I wish I was...

          We were buying Compaq. The actual models I am referring to are Prosignia (784MB RAM) - pre-Capellas product, Pressario (first post-Capellas product) - down to 512MB, cheap chinese generic junk motherboard and a shitty noisy fan made in Mexico, followed by Evo (first Carly product) - up to 2-4G RAM, custom motherboard with a correct thermal design.

          You may be buying from HPPaq but it is very clear that you are not repairing them.
          • At the end of the day though, these things are cheap home systems, not business machines. Yeah they were crap, they were cheap too. I haven't seen the new pressarios etc being any better on having the ability to put a standard power supply in them or anything else (the biggest repair fault I have seen with the older units)

            I still much prefer the business machines from Compaq when they were around to the current stuff being pushed out by HP / Compaq....

  • Less is more (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:13PM (#12875530) Homepage
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ubergrendle ( 531719 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:24PM (#12875620) Journal
      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.
      • "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?"

        In the immortal words of George Jetson... ."Jane! Get Me Off This Crazy Thing!" :)

      • Re:Less is more (Score:2, Informative)

        by Noaccess0 ( 888935 )
        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
        • Wow, actually that's quite good. You need to fit in "Linux" in there somehow, and have a chart showing somewhere vaguely near the end of time the 'sunsetting' of PA-RISC and then I think you have it!

          Unfortunately we've just articulated the best marketing strategy HP has had in years... :/

    • Re:Less is more (Score:5, Insightful)

      by arete ( 170676 ) <xigarete+slashdot@nosPam.gmail.com> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:26PM (#12875633) Homepage
      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.

      • Why is this being modded funny? This is an accurate analysis. IBM has a strong software services business and has dedicated significant resources to developing and releasing open source software and building solutions on Open Source and Linux. HP does that, but not to the exten IBM does, but HP sells a great server product that runs Linux exceptionally well so they lead in that part of the market.
        • It was my post, and I didn't think it was funny. Except possibly the fact that I don't get many Funny mods, and then I got one, and then you took it away by pointing out it shouldn't have been funny. That's a painful kind of funny...

          But definitely the funniest part of that post. :)

    • Re:Less is more (Score:1, Insightful)

      by suitepotato ( 863945 )
      To me, HP is a middleman doing anything profitable, while IBM sticks to one thing and tries to do it well.

      And like a lazy underachiever who delusionally thinks himself a contender, they fail miserably at that thing.

      I don't know why people assign so much weight to IBM's presence in the Linux world. Does Linux have Token Ring support? Does it play well with OS/2? Do we care? From another angle, what are they exactly doing that will contribute to the spread of Linux? Putting it on desktops where it will
      • Don't forget their failure/slow performance to port lotus notes to linux even though some customers have been asking for it and a high powered groupware client/server could have meant a lot to the desktop linux push.

    • Re:Less is more (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mmkkbb ( 816035 )
      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.
      • I was going to respond with the same thing but then I thought about it a bit. IBM really does try and do one thing. EVERYTHING :)

        I think they have a problem with NIH syndrome.

  • This is the summary (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DarkMavis ( 767874 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:19PM (#12875574)
      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.
    • Doesn't most of what Linux cred HP have come from their acquisition of "the lab formerly known as DECWRL" via their acquisition of Compaq, and the projects Jon "Maddog" Hall started there?

  • Market Share (Score:5, Insightful)

    by coop0030 ( 263345 ) * on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:14PM (#12875537) Homepage
    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 (Score:2, Informative)

      by 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 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wishus ( 174405 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:33PM (#12875681) Journal
      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 [cooltechzone.com].

      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 (Score:3, Interesting)

        by darkonc ( 47285 )
        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 prog

        • It has more to do with support then Microsoft. I am no fan of Mirosoft. I use linux on my desktop and work and at home linux is on more systems then windows. In the end HP will support FreeDOS or basically the hardware that comes with the laptop without having to explain how to play a DVD in linux or anyother software related questions. If they give you the Laptop with FreeDOS all they have to support is FreeDOS. They are nice and give you Linux CD and make sure that it works with there hardware from t

    • Re:Market Share (Score:4, Informative)

      by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:37PM (#12875730)
      IIRC, HP was also one of the leading sponsors if the "SCO Road Trip" last year...

      • Re:Market Share (Score:3, Informative)

        by njcoder ( 657816 )
        You remembered correctly. Here's the story [theregister.co.uk]. 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.
    • hp supports less but still does it

      example:

      hp still sends checks every month to some samba developers

    • Re:Market Share (Score:4, Informative)

      by jacoplane ( 78110 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:42PM (#12875769) Homepage Journal
      I say FUD. HP is doing plenty to support linux, as well as development. They sponsor:

      - Gentoo [gentoo.org] ,GNOME [gnome.org],
      - Linux International [li.org]
      - Free Standards Group [freestandards.org] (the LSB is a workgroup of these guys)
      - the OSS Institute [oss-institute.org]
      - OSDL [osdl.org], Kernel.org [kernel.org]
      - etc.

      HP has many people hacking the linux kernel [google.com]. Of course, IBM is doing great stuff as well, but you sketched the situation in a much too black & white way.
      • The key to grandparent's post is seems they actually help.

        As others have said, though, HP is so in bed with MS, they can't trumpet Linux too much.
      • Lets look at Gentoo's Financials [gentoo.org]. Do you think HP donated that 500 bucks all by themselves or was that the combination of all the vendors? :) I think HP also loaned them some hardware.
        • On gentoo's site it says:

          HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. HP has over 200 products that ship with open source software. From client to server to data center, HP is contributing to hundreds of open source projects every day. For more information about HP's open source involvement, check out http://opensource.hp.com/ [hp.com]

          HP provides R&D resources and has loaned Alpha and IA64 hardware to the Gentoo Linux project.

          so yes, you're right. What does "

      • Re:Market Share (Score:3, Interesting)

        by sasha328 ( 203458 )
        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 [hp.com]

        (Disclaimer, I work for HP)
  • I think the real way to get mindshare is who contributes more.

    IBM and SGI get quite some publicity through JFS and XFS. I'm unaware if HP does similar.

    HP does offer nice Debian Support [hp.com]; and that's what I know them best for.

    Does anyone have a list of how each company contributes?

    • Re:Who contributes more. (Score:5, Informative)

      by team99parody ( 880782 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:21PM (#12875592) Homepage
      ...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 [cnn.com] 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.
      • IBM, in a move reminicent of drug gangs, got in trouble with their illegal graffiti [cnn.com] 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.

        What a bizarre analysis...IBM was doing the "street marketing" thing that was a brief fad on Madison Avenue (you may not recall, but Microsoft and Nike did the same graffiti things). To say that this is IBM "standing by Linux" is ridiculous. It was an ad camp

      • Re:Who contributes more. (Score:4, Funny)

        by Atzanteol ( 99067 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @05:41PM (#12876259) Homepage
        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.

    • Re:Who contributes more. (Score:5, Informative)

      by tytso ( 63275 ) * on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:24PM (#12875619) Homepage
      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.
    • In other words, IBM and SGI threw in filesystems that they happened to have lying around anyway, and aren't used that much.

      HP may not have contributed any single huge chunk of code like a filesystem (which is fine, we have plenty), but they do contribute a lot in the way of drivers, maintainability code, support, etc. Which in the long run is probably much more useful, if less flashy, than Yet Another File System.

      (A very quick look at kernel code shows that actually most IBM contributions are s390 and pp
  • Everyone remembers the Corvair. And if you had experience with it, you'll remember the HP 6L and the HP 1100. Utter crap!
    • I dunno...aside from the feed roller problem, which has since been fixed with a newer type of rubber, my 6L has done fine by me.
      • Yep, the new friction pad that HP sent out to avoid the class action lawsuit solved the problem if you're going to use it as a low-volume printer. The fact that it's a gravity feed paper system is a lot harder to rectify, without buying the 1200.
        As an aside, the 1100 and 1200 printers printed a page count on the test page. That was removed when the EOL'ed the 1200 and its replacement, the 1300 does not have that feature, uses a different cartridge (with a small microchip on it which I do not know what it

  • So What? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by HaFBaKeD ( 893874 )
    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? (Score:2, Informative)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      . . .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 t

  • I've always liked HP servers (Score:3, Informative)

    by udderly ( 890305 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:17PM (#12875560)
    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.
    • If HP = Compaq Prolian pre HP days I'd agree with you, if you mean HP Intel servers pre-compaq days I'd wonder what servers you worked on because pre-Compaq merger days HP were big boxes of crap, at least the series that I worked on/was certified on in the late 90s
  • ....... since they are still dealing with SCO over IP issues? We want that to be pretty public and well known.

    And if IBM so enjoys identifying with LINUX, then their deep pockets can be used to establish some things legally.

    Everyone wins here, as far as I can see.

  • I just... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Shads ( 4567 ) <shadusNO@SPAMshadus.org> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:20PM (#12875589) Homepage Journal
    ... want a nice big mainframe in my closet running linux.

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

    Linux Mainframe... ooh.

  • The reason is ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:26PM (#12875634) Journal
    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 ... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by locutus2k ( 103517 )
      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 mat

      • Re:The reason is ... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:50PM (#12875825) Journal
        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"?
      • 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

  • Code talks, BS walks. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:28PM (#12875649)
    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 [hp.com], but only a few of them are linux specific. IBM on the other hand contributes to at least 162 projects [ibm.com], 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.

    • So how does Sun compare to these two? While numbers, 32 [sunsource.net], does not compare, what about the scope of some of the projects. Open Office and Open Solaris just to name a couple.

      • Depends how you count it. If you just count the number of projects then Sun doesn't look so good. But also consider that IBM is around 10 times bigger than Sun in terms of marketcap, employees, revenue and net income which doesn't make their contributions look bad at all.

        Also consider the size of their contributions to those projects and how important stuff like OpenOffice.org is. Then you have Sun's history of supporting open standards and publishing a lot of their research like their Sparc [sparc.org] cpu which

      • Open Office is nice, but notice that it didn't start at Sun, and Sun gets to take the code and close it off into the (proprietary) Star Office. -- then there's the Patent deal between Sun and Microsoft that protects Star Office, but not Open Office.

        Open Solaris, on the other hand is semi-closed. You can't use the code in GPL projects, and you have to (co) assign copyright in your code to Sun to have any hope of being able to distribute it. Just how does this promote Linux? I'd even question what good the

  • And so that IBM thundercloud shall remain forever on the horizon until it slams into the mountain of not actaully selling anything.

  • HP Fails at Marketing IBM fails at doing real work (Score:3, Funny)

    by razmaspaz ( 568034 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:31PM (#12875669)
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by csoto ( 220540 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:32PM (#12875672)
    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.
  • The original post appears to be talking about percentage points not volume or $$'s. IBM is 2-3 times the size of HP. IBM might not make the same percentage in revenue that HP does on Linux, but IBM invest way more in developement. I can't connect to the article right now to verify that it is talking percentage and not volume.

    --
    So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?

  • "What brand runs most Linuxes"
    This is just about the hardware, and the hardware only. HP's Proliant series is still way ahead of IBM, FujitsuSiemens, Dell and so on.

    But the hardware agents for Linux blows, the driver support blows and to call their Linux support for support is hypocrisy.

    This is a plain hardware issue.
  • Dell probably sells more Linux servers than either IBM or HP.

  • But, but.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    But HP replaced Carly with Mark GNU/Hurd [hp.com]! Surely that's gotta count for something?

  • ...Windows Server 2003 is just too expensive and would add 50% to our bargain-basement $45 monthly rate for a dedicated server.

    Hence, we use Linux (Suse 9.3) + Apache (1.3 or 2.0 depending on customer preferences).

  • Experienced opinion (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @04:36PM (#12875709)
    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?
    • The Lenovo deal had absolutely bupkis to do with servers. The PC business that IBM sold was losing money hand over fist. The PC division had absolutely no products in common with the server group. IBM even HELD ON to the part of the PC business that was making money, retail systems. The xSeries server line is integrated with the rest of the server group, and is quite profitable. What does the Lenovo deal have to do with anything?

      IBM holds the #1 share in Blade Servers, and #2 overall in the Intel/AMD
  • I just bought a Dell.

    2x3GHz,
    2GB RAM,
    3x250GB SATA RAID 5, (six RAID bays)
    Redhat ES 3 year,
    3 year next-day warranty (for "free"), rather than their 4-hour on-site service (not free).

    $2600.

    HP and IBM were just too expensive.

    Dell had some interesting 1U and blade-type stuff, but I was buying a file/mail server.
    • Ahh, another sucker of up front prices verses Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

      Nearly every Proliant these days ships standard with an integrated managment board that lets you get into the system no matter if the OS is up and running fine, or if the box is powered down. That alone saves money since if something does go wrong, you could in theory VPN into work and check it, instead of driving across town to press F1 to a RAID failure prompt on boot.

      A local shop I help support is getting rid of all their IBM

  • and yet... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ....people with a clue know this is all marketroid bullshit.
  • For those technically challenged:

    Apparently there's a tug-o-war between IBM and HP.

    IBM: The penguin's mine!
    HP: No, mine!
    IBM: Mine!
    HP: MINE!
    Penguin: HELP!!!
  • Anybody ever try to reach HP's phone support to their Linux Servers??? About 18 months ago we ordered several HP Proliant (I still can't get over that - it's like Michael Jordan on the Wizards) DL servers and copies of Red Hat Enterprise straight off their website. The version of Red Hat they shipped did not yet have driver support for their fan system (And my god those fans are LOUD), and the drivers were nowhere to be found on HP's website. So, we called HP. First we were routed to India/Pakistan/Kyrg

  • sigh of relief (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ohzero ( 525786 ) <onemillioninchange AT yahoo DOT com> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @05:21PM (#12876114) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • seems to me... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tadd ( 51292 ) <tadd.davis@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @06:03PM (#12876416) Journal
    ... 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

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