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Linux Business Technology

Gartner: Linux Servers Booming 205

Posted by CowboyNeal from the all-the-rage-with-the-kids-these-days dept.
Tarantolato writes "According to a recent Gartner report, low-end Linux server shipments grew significantly in the first quarter of 2004. Part of this may be due to the comeback of the relational database market in 2003, where Linux growth was especially strong, while Windows growth was weaker. There is mixed news for Sun, who saw growing shipments but declining revenues in Q1 of 2004."
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Gartner: Linux Servers Booming More

Gartner: Linux Servers Booming

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  • Meh, statistics (Score:1, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 )
    To say linux server sales are up 27% means little if the volume is low.

    If I sold one last year, and three this year then I can talk about 300% growth, but that number is meaningless.

    Yeah, linux is gaining ground, but has a long way to go.

    • Mod Parent Down (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:00PM (#9274073)
      He speaketh against our penguin overlord. Without Tux what will we worship? CowboyNeals nutsack?

    • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BiggerIsBetter ( 682164 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:00PM (#9274075)
      I wonder what sort of increase the MacOS server market showed? It also means little if servers are being shipped with XP or even no OS, and being loaded with Debian after delivery. I doubt it takes into account systems built in-house either. Statistics show only what gatherer wants them to show.

      • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:2, Insightful)

        by jbplou ( 732414 )
        What moron would by a system to be a database that comes with XP lets be realistic if you are shopping for server hardware you can buy it without an OS and also the MS OS would be Windows Server 2003 or 2000 possibly. Database servers aren't run on desktop pcs.

      • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:5, Informative)

        by Unknown Relic ( 544714 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:51PM (#9274319) Homepage
        It also means little if servers are being shipped with XP or even no OS, and being loaded with Debian after delivery.

        I know in the past when ordering servers from Dell even though we order them with no operating system preinstalled the sales rep would ask what OS we were going to be using, presumably to gather just that sort of information. As for stripping windows and installing a Linux distribution, how often does this really happen on server hardware? On desktops, sure, but on a server? It's highly unlikely any serious hardware could even be ordered with a non-server version of windows, and if you're footing the bill for that, chances are it's not so you can just toss it and do a reformat as soon as the machine arrives.

        • I have 2 servers that were stripped of Windows. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:34PM (#9274539)
          They were initially purchased to run Windows apps. When the Windows servers were upgraded, I grabbed these two and put Linux on them.

          So, four sales for Windows (two initial servers and the two replacement servers)
          -and-
          No sales for Linux
          -but-
          Actual deployment is 2 servers for Windows and 2 for Linux.

          (That isn't 50% of our servers. We have almost 20 Windows servers because the apps don't play well with each other.) I expect there are a lot more installations like mine out there. The sales percentages (particularly the $$$) will not tell you the real picture.

    • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:2, Informative)

      by nelsonal ( 549144 )
      $900 million in quarterly sales is not exactly low volume. I'm not sure how much of the revenue is mainframe based (they also had a good quarter due to a hardware refresh by IBM. Unit numbers are not disclosed in the press releases (you gotta pay for the details) but unit growth was just behind revenue growth, which is backward from other markets where prices usually decline, they've been ramping for several quarters in linux servers. I think windows servers (or perhaps the whole x86 market is about $4 b

    • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:2, Informative)

      by hdparm ( 575302 )
      RTFA. Says there, 1.57 million units sold.

    • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:5, Informative)

      by RoLi ( 141856 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @03:43AM (#9275349)
      And that gets modded up as insightful?

      Depending on whose numbers you are going to believe, Linux already holds about 30% to 50% of the market, strangely the Linux share is always higher in areas where the numbers are not guessed but counted like in webservers where Apache/Linux holds a comfortable majority.

      Have you ever searched a webhoster in Germany that even offers Windows? Mine stopped to offer it last year. Windows is dying there, and losing more and more:

      look here [securityspace.com]

      In Japan, the same picture:

      stats [securityspace.com]

      In a lot of countries, Windows on servers is already an exotic niche platform.

      Webhosters don't want it anymore because the support costs aren't worth it and the added risk (a worm was the reason my webhoster stopped offering Windows) has to be paid somehow. Customers don't want it anymore because Apache gives them a much larger palette of availabe webhosters - thus more choice, lower costs and more competition among webhosters.

      Windows just offers no real advantages to make up for all the license hassles.

      • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Lonewolf666 ( 259450 )
        quote: Have you ever searched a webhoster in Germany that even offers Windows? Mine stopped to offer it last year.
        I live in Germany. In my favourite computer magazine C't there are frequently ads of webhosters who offer servers with both kinds of OS for rent.
        Usually, the Linux root server is slightly cheaper than the equivalent Windows server. A typical price would be 49 euros/month for a small linux server with limited transfer volume, and 59 euros/month for the windows version. Now what does this tel

      • Thanks for posting those links. While I appreciate how much more significant the move to linux is outside the U.S. those graphics still blew my mind. Seeing a pie chart showing 90% to an OSS solution with microsoft at 7% and dismally trailing out into oblivion makes me delirious with joy.

        Unfortunately the country I live in (au) [securityspace.com] is not quite at this joyous point yet. Oh well, maybe once we disengage from the U.S.'s latest military empire play we can start thinking a bit more independently. I live in hope.

      • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:2, Interesting)

        by matuscak ( 523184 )
        Interesting links. What I think is fascinating is the percentages for IIS seem to be highest in .gov (37.86%) and .mil (66.13% !!). At least from march to april, the IIS percentages for those domains *grew*.

    • Re:Meh, statistics (Score:2, Insightful)

      by topdogqqq ( 780537 )
      Statistics can be misleading, but I know at our University many of us no longer order servers with windows. Just this week we are ordering 3 servers with no OS that will get Debian installed. When I look around I see many others going this way too. It's not at critical mass yet but it is substantial and I see the writing on the wall, Microsoft will be slammed hard. They won't die by any means but they will be humbled to the level they deserve within a few short years. Every server I buy without a Micro
    • > but that number is meaningless.

      You don't work in Marketting, do you :)
      • Obviously not -- the folks in Marketing know that "that number is meaningless" and "that number is not something we can use to stomp the competition" are completely unrelated concepts.

  • Great news, but is there a typo? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by coupland ( 160334 ) * <dchase@ho[ ]il.com ['tma' in gap]> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:56PM (#9274051) Journal

    According to Gartner, revenue of Linux-based server hardware rose 57.3 percent over the first quarter, while commercial Unix server revenue fell 2.3 percent.

    Is it just me or does 57.3 percent growth genuinely impress you as well? I can only assume the article contains a mistake since it claims 57.3 percent revenue growth for linux-based servers over the first quarter which means "in three months". This strikes me as unlikely, unless Linux is actually destroying everything in its path. Shouldn't this read year over year in which case the 57.3 percent growth happened in 12 months, not 3. Can anyone confirm for sure? Regardless this is fantastic news, it's been a many, many years since we've seen genuine competition in the OS market.

    • Re:Great news, but is there a typo? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:01PM (#9274080)
      Percent increase isn't impressive without hard numbers. Were there 100 or 50,000 shipments of linux servers the year before? Shipping an extra 57 this year isn't much, but an extra 28,650 is. So try not to wet yourself over this, there are no actual numbers, just some nice sounding percentages.

    • Re:Great news, but is there a typo? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by j0hndoe ( 677869 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:01PM (#9274082) Journal
      Regardless this is fantastic news, it's been a many, many years since we've seen genuine competition in the OS market.

      Really? I've been reading articles for YEARS about how Linux was Microsoft's biggest threat. Starting with those insane "Linux IPOs" in 1999/2000. And Microsoft pointed at Linux in the anti-trust trial. (ok, that was self-serving, but it ended up being true anyway). This isn't really anything new at this point. The numbers are just confirming it.
    • I looked at the Gartner site, but the main page and a search didn't turn up this report. Is it available to the public yet, and does anyone have a link? It's usually best to go to the source to check the numbers to see what they really mean.

    • Re:Great news, but is there a typo? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Galvatron ( 115029 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:38AM (#9274794)
      I can only assume the article contains a mistake since it claims 57.3 percent revenue growth for linux-based servers over the first quarter which means "in three months"

      When they say things like this, they usually mean "relative to the first quarter of last year." So if all four quarters show a 50% rate of growth, the growth rate for the year would be 50%, not over 400% (1.5^4-1). They do things this way because the season can make a big difference in puchases, and so they don't want to muddle things by comparing different months or different quarters. The same thing happens for big tetail chains (Walgreens generally reports sales growth on the order of 14% each month, but they mean relative to the same month last year, not the month immediately prior).

  • Keep the noise down! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:58PM (#9274061)
    Linux servers are booming, Windows servers are bombing and crashing. It's hard to get caught up on my sleep!

  • Oracle versus SQL Server (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:59PM (#9274071) Homepage Journal
    This isn't Linux versus Windows -- it's SQL Server versus Oracle. Shops are choosing Oracle and then choosing Linux as the platform (given that it's largely irrelevant what platform it runs on). The submission implies that it was a toss up between Windows and Linux, and after choosing Linux they started looking around for a RDBMS.

    • Re:Oracle versus SQL Server (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sloanster ( 213766 ) <ringfan&mainphrame,com> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:05PM (#9274101) Journal
      it's largely irrelevant what platform it runs on

      um, Oracle would beg to differ with you on that one - and speaking for myself as a customer, I am keenly interested in what platform it runs on...

      • Re:Oracle versus SQL Server (Score:5, Insightful)

        by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:20PM (#9274178) Homepage Journal
        It doesn't matter to most customers. Most customers don't plan to interact much with the OS on their database servers, and want to use whatever Oracle says will be best. They just want the best-supported configuration, which means that they'll use exactly what Oracle installs (or has Red Hat install), and won't change anything. Of course, it's a significant milestone therefore that Oracle is pushing Linux (and moving to it internally), because that means that it actually has the best TCO for that kind of system, because Oracle knows that they get all the money that doesn't go into the customer's TCO on the database.
        • Do I see a nitch market here? We have an enterprise Oracle database running on Linux (On an IBM eServer in VM). Very cool setup, and it doesn't break a sweat. It is administrered by two admins and supported by numerous programmers and DBA's. What I am saying is if I weren't a government agency with deep pockets, I might want this kind of setup on an outsourced basis. Hey, looks like kaching kaching to me.

        • Re:Oracle versus SQL Server (Score:5, Interesting)

          by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:15PM (#9274424)
          Oracle has little interst in the TCO of its customers, except insofar as it can promote it to its customers.

          Oracle is interested in Oracle. It is not in Oracle's interests to have its fortunes tied entirely to single propriatary OS whose owners can dictate Oracle's business to Oracle.

          There is, of course, a cautionary tale to be found here by Oracle's customers as well, and TCO is not the be all and end all of the matter. It is often worth paying more to achieve some desirable end, say, independence from a single monolithic supplier.

          And if Microsoft's products were truely and clearly superior you can be sure that instead of touting a lower TCO they'd be perfectly happy to tout the fact that they're a bit more expensive, but worth it.

          In fact, when the whole fallacy of their TCO argument blows up in their face this rather the tack I expect they will shift to.

          They may find, however, that the time has finally come when they must come about and run before the wind rather than beating into it.

          Which brings us right back to my original premise.

          KFG
          • Oracle is keenly interested in the TCO of its customers.

            Specifically, because given a fixed TCO, if the OS is "less expensive" there is more margin for Oracle in the sale.

            For example, 5 years ago, a customer would buy Oracle to run a "big database" on an E10K with Solaris. They may pay $1M for a 3 year contract for the Oracle license, and $1M for the hardware and software maintenance from Sun (these numbers are rough, order of magnitude figures).

            These days, the customers can run the Oracle database on c

        • Re:Oracle versus SQL Server (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fritz1968 ( 569074 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @06:49AM (#9275951)
          Most customers don't plan to interact much with the OS on their database servers, and want to use whatever Oracle says will be best.

          I believe that there is another reason that Oracle is "recommending" the linux platform and I am a little surprised that no one has yet to metion it: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

          I thought that it was common knowledge that Ellison hates MS. Or at the very least, he wants his company to be better than MS. If that is the case, then why would Oracle want to "recommend" that their customers use the Windows platform to run oracle? That is just more money into MS's pockets. By "recommending" linux, then there is less money going to Microsoft.

          Another thought is that by keeping MS out of the picture and recommending Linux, the less likely that their client will be stolen away by MS in favor of the MS SQL server. I wonder how many times (if any) that Oracle lost a client to MS SQL server because the consultant who setup the server suggested SQL Server?

          just a thought...

          • One thing I just thought of is that by eliminating OS licensing costs, Oracle salespeople can make a pitch for selling just a little more of Oracle's products. "Since you saved X by not buying Windows...how about adding in Oracle Extension Pack Y?" Most companies will simply choose to save the money, but any company choosing to shovel it over to Oracle is good for Oracle.

          • Well doesn't oracle have thier own operating systems based on unix/linux? I believe it is basically set up for a 64 bit system though. Also using linux as a substitute instead of windows would let then concentrate more on sales instead of development and open an enviroment that was previously not a real player. The enviroment is smaller companies not wanting to invest in "big iron" platforms. I know oracle has for a while supported windows but I believe the performance and other aspects of thier product sh
          • >
            how many times (if any) that Oracle lost a client to MS SQL server because the consultant who setup the server suggested SQL Server?

            Problem is, when running on GNU/Linux I'd recommend IBM DB2 or PostgreSQL, both higher-quality, cheaper, more ISO SQL compliant than Oracle.

      • Actually, Oracle is OS agnostic. They run everywhere (bah, mostly. Win, Linux, Hp Ux, Solaris, and a big etcetera).
        They do pitch linux a lot lately.
        • Of course they would pitch it...when comparing license costs for Oracle vs SQL Server, the latter wins hands downs...but considering that in order to use SQL Server, one must also have a license to 2000 Server, the price difference is less of an issue for Oracle if linux server is employed.

    • Re:Oracle versus SQL Server (Score:5, Insightful)

      by flinxmeister ( 601654 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:09PM (#9274120) Homepage
      I wish my company would do this. They chose Oracle on Linux a couple years back with a single (mediocre at best) developer as the admin. The resulting and expected crappy experience resulted in a decision to go with Sun.

      But instead of going with serious Sun hardware we now have a whole slew of entry level sun servers that routinely sweat under even moderate loads. Even then, they just incrementally buy small servers for *every* function. (It's like NT shops used to be, except twice as expensive).

      The server admins have, at this point, kind of a glazed humorous look in their eyes. If we'd made an intelligent choice between Linux and Solaris (even if it resulted in a hybrid situation), we could have saved thousands and thousands of dollars and have a managable situation. Instead, it's insanity.

      Word to the wise: Don't believe the hype and TEST THE SETUP WITH COMPETENT ENGINEERS!. You'd think this would be common sense...but alas...we seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.

      • More Servers with Less Money Spent (Score:5, Interesting)

        by yintercept ( 517362 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:34PM (#9274242) Homepage Journal

        Skipping the Linux v. Windows v. Sun debates. The main gist of the article is that there are more servers being thrown up at a significantly less cost.

        To a very large extent, this is just the gradual realization of productivity increases. The scary side of the equation is the extent to which companies are pushing people out of the equations. The ever dropping margins means a tougher job market for slashdotters. Or, how should I say it. More work for lower pay.

        Word to the wise: Don't believe the hype and TEST THE SETUP WITH COMPETENT ENGINEERS!

        The expectation of lower costs leads to scenarios like the one described where the company is trying to get by on one subpar admin, or they push their support staff to the brink with more servers than the staff can handle...without a good plan for installing or using the servers.

        • That's what's odd in this case. Once the decision was made to go with Sun they actually hired a couple very good Sun guys, and a couple really good Oracle DBAs. But the momentum for lots of low end Sun boxes was already in full swing by the time they loaded the new red Swingline and had enough clout to matter.

          I guess the danger of many cheap servers is that it can give the illusion of cost savings over the long haul, when in reality a far more economical approach would be to go ahead and start big...o
        • Skipping the Linux v. Windows v. Sun debates. The main gist of the article is that there are more servers being thrown up at a significantly less cost.

          You've obviously never seen how much it costs to purchase an Oracle license...
    • (given that it's largely irrelevant what platform it runs on)

      Apparently, you never experienced the joys of Oracle 8.1.5 on Windows NT. Oracle really is at home on UNIX/VMS; Windows is just window dressing for Oracle.

  • What was Microsoft's server growth? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:02PM (#9274084)
    Just for a point of comparison, I'd like to know. Linux grew 57 percent, Unix was down 2 percent, what about MS? (I'd just like concrete confirmation of Linux kicking Microsoft's fanny, OK?)

  • Is because competitors are not free market (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argoff ( 142580 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:02PM (#9274088)

    Copyrights have nothing to do with free market property rights, but are rather like government regulations about what people can do with information. But the GPL, has found a 'loophole' in these restrictions - and is far more accountable to free market forces. People who have closed software are going to continue to pay huge opportunity costs as the market takes off again.

  • not consistant (Score:5, Interesting)

    by networkGhettoWhore ( 564183 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:06PM (#9274105)
    I am not trying to undermine Gartner, but this poll seems to be inconsistant with the recent netDeck poll which stated linux hardware rose 31% as opposed to the stated 57% here.

    • I am not trying to undermine Gartner, but this poll seems to be inconsistant with the recent netDeck poll which stated linux hardware rose 31% as opposed to the stated 57% here.

      Keep in mind that Gartner tends to survey a different set of customers/companies than netDeck does. So it's probably fair to say that among the largest companies (the Gartner survey) Linux hardware rose 57%, but more industry-wide (the netDeck survey) it only rose 31%.

  • but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tisme ( 414989 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:09PM (#9274121)
    But... those Windows Server advertisements say that Windows server is so much faster... And the results are from INDEPENDENT and ACADEMIC sources?? Why would companies buy the inferior product?? Surely Microsoft would not lie? :P

  • Job Market (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pavera ( 320634 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:11PM (#9274134) Homepage Journal
    I have definately seen this in the job market
    1 year ago I was looking for DBA jobs, and hardly anyone requested linux knowledge/experience.

    Now I'm looking again and I would say for 70-80% of the jobs I look at (DBA stuff) linux is either recommended or required. Linux really is making alot of inroads into the DB server market from what I see.

    • Re:Job Market (Score:2, Informative)

      by markan18 ( 718118 )
      I created myself a linux job by selling linux and openbsd solutions to one of my customers. Linux do a great job replacing aging and worm ridden NT servers.

      Furthermore, when you search linux on yahoo hotjobs [yahoo.com], you will find thousands of linux jobs. In Québec, were i live, linux jobs [workopolis.com] are also available.
      • I created myself a linux job by selling linux and openbsd solutions to one of my customers. Linux do a great job replacing aging and worm ridden NT servers.

        That's an excellent business strategy, and I can tell you that there's a lot of business to be had just picking the low hanging fruit as you pointed out.

        I've done a good deal of work for a local finance company which has been retiring ms windows servers and replacing them with suse linux. They are extremely happy with the improved reliability and perf

  • Linux Servers Booming?! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:12PM (#9274142) Homepage Journal
    Oh my God, I'll better watch out for my server, I don't want it to suddenly boom! I'll better check the water cooling system...

  • In Related News... (Score:5, Funny)

    by k4_pacific ( 736911 ) <k4_pacific@yahoo . c om> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:17PM (#9274165) Homepage Journal
    A Microsoft representative made the following statement at a press conference today:

    "Where are you going? Come back! You'll all be doomed, DOOMED if you use Linux. DOOMED! After all, our studies, err, I mean independent studies have shown that Windows has a lower overall total cost of ownership. I mean, c'mon, Longhorn's coming soon. It will be better, we promise. It has Pallad-- err, Trusted Computing. Doesn't that sound nice? Trust? Can you trust Linux? You can? Fine! Be that way. We have FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS. We can by and sell your ass. Hmmppphhh!"

    A followup press release attributed the remarks to an overly tight necktie.

  • Gartner (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:21PM (#9274182)
    So do we like Gartner today?

    • Re:Gartner (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NonSequor ( 230139 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:01PM (#9274367) Journal
      Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis
      (I do not trust the Greeks, even bearing gifts)
      --Vergil, The Aeneid

    • Re:Gartner (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:09PM (#9274396)
      Yes (0.8 likelihood)
    • Nope, tomorrow they'll come out with a report saying that IT spending has gone up 50 times due to migration over to linux. However, this is hedged by microsoft's TCO being -$88,000 per server. Yes people, it actually generates money on the fly!

    • Re:Gartner (Score:2, Funny)

      by femto ( 459605 )
      We like Gartner on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays of odd numbered months. In even numbered months, the rule is Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, with the exception of the first week when Sundays become Wednesdays. In leap years, swap the role of odd and even months.

      Consequently, yes, today we like Gartner.

      Of course that depends on what time zone you like in. If you live in the US, you should still be hating Gartner until midnight.

    • Who is we kimo sabe?

  • SCOIX (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:21PM (#9274185)
    Well this is bad news for innovation and copyright. Linux on the rise == Piracy on the rise. This is a sad day for us all. I hope this "rise" of Linux servers means people are buying the correct LICENSE from SCO to run Linux. Otherwise, we're all in trouble. SCO has given the world so much, when they invented Linux, and now nobody wants to pay for it and pretend its free. Nothing is free folks. Get on over to SCO and buy a license and sleep better tonight.

    You're all a bunch of smelly ass hippies, and have no business using a computer if you don't want to pay for the OS!

    • Re:SCOIX (Score:4, Funny)

      by dcstimm ( 556797 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:39PM (#9274261) Homepage
      thanks for letting me know, i didnt know the slashdot croud felt that way, I happily payed for all my linux licenses from sco. Only thing I didnt like was the fact that they charged me almost double for my dual cpu machines. Oh well better be safe than sorry. Hopefully they will lower the price alittle in the future so linux will become more mainstream.

  • zeitgeist (Score:2, Informative)

    by Coneasfast ( 690509 )
    nice to see it's growing, zeitgeist [google.com] still shows a pitiful 1% though :(

    • Re:zeitgeist (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 1lus10n ( 586635 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:53PM (#9274322) Journal
      thats desktop, not server. More importantly that number cannot be accurate since just about every method of checking that can be modified. (and in many cases it is)

    • Re:zeitgeist (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Except that, since about half of the poorly designed websites on the planet stupidly check for IE or Netscape for windows, there could be many people who use other systems but are forced to masquerade as something else. When they get complaints about how their site works fine with x (for all x=opera, omniweb, safari, konqueror, etc) pretending it's IE, they just try and make the ID process more stringent.
      In a word, I don't trust zeigeist's numbers.

    • Re:zeitgeist (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ry0n ( 760790 )
      I have 5 computers running (or almost running) at the moment. Only two of them ever visit websites / use google. Oh, and I'm not a business. All of these machines are for my entertainment and/or utility. If I understand the zeitgeist correctly, those computers don't exist. Or, more simply - who surfs the web on a headless database server?

    • Re:zeitgeist (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gheesh ( 191858 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:41AM (#9274803) Homepage Journal

      nice to see it's growing, zeitgeist [google.com] still shows a pitiful 1% though

      On the other hand, the Netcraft Web Server Survey [netcraft.com] shows 67% of the machines running Apache, and most of them run Linux or FreeBSD

  • MIcrosoft already knew it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonent@stone[ ] ... t ['nt.' in gap]> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:38PM (#9274255) Journal
    When I worked there, there were posters saying that if each MS employee converted 5 linux servers to 5 windows servers that MS could finally outsell linux in the server market. I SO wanted to take a picture of it but I didn't want to get caught.

    • The problem with that.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:21AM (#9274740) Homepage
      Of course, you can't replace five linux servers with five windows servers. If you tried, you'd have...not enough servers. You'd need at least ten to twenty-five windows servers to replace five linux servers. :)

      Now, if you replaced five linux servers with five windows servers and four linux servers, it would look good for MS, which would apparently have more servers at that point, even though the linux servers would be doing 80% of the work. :)

  • Linux Servers Booming (Score:5, Interesting)

    by frfriel ( 783590 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:41PM (#9274273) Homepage
    The bottom line is this. The number of servers sold with Linux preinstalled is increasing. The sales of Linux built for multiprocessing is increasing. But, is it increasing enough to become a true competitor in the market. To say that sales are up 57% by revenue is mileading. Especially if revenue previously was crap. I could say my income increased 600% if I got a raise to about 12,000 a month. But there are tons of people who make 12,000 a month. Linux sales don't even scratch the big guys (or guy). If the revenue (and/or # of servers shipped with Linux) continues to increase at a 57% clip, then we will soon be seeing some drama in the market. May the penguins day come, and it's sun shine bright enough to blind the other guy.
    • I'm sorry? Two years ago the effort to get ANY server from Dell or HP with Linux preinstalled wasn't worth it. Now they're shipping in volume, and you're asking if it's increasing enough to be a true competitor...

      Doh... have I just fed a troll? ;-)

  • They are taking Linux seriously (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:49PM (#9274308)
    I know Red Hat is not linux, but it is to be noted that after the MSCI rebalance they included Red Hat in Prime Market 750

  • What is a low end linux server? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cft_128 ( 650084 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:06PM (#9274384)
    I wonder what they qualify as a 'Low End Server'? Only uniprocessor? Quad Xeon with an ultra320 hardware RAID? Any x86 Linux box?
    • The terms "Low End" or "High End" for lawyers and accountants like the Gartner people are has nothing to do with technical specs and everything with price point. If that 1 Ghz PIII loaded with software costs a bundle, it's high-end. If you bought 10 GHZ of CPU power for $2k loaded with software, it's low-end.

  • %'s from the Article (Score:4, Informative)

    by WaterBottle ( 754605 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:08PM (#9274393)
    It looks like the total Linux based DB market of $300M was just slightly bigger than the increase in MS based market (3% of 7.1b = $222m) Big percentage changes, but different market shares to start...

  • Much better write-up of same data (Score:5, Informative)

    by ToLu the Happy Furby ( 63586 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:10PM (#9274407)
    There's a much more detailed summary [com.com] of the Gartner report up at com.com. The overall numbers are thus:

    Total WW Q1 server revenue: $11.81 billion, +9.3% quarter-on-quarter*

    That breaks down into:
    Windows: $4.13 billion, +19.5%
    Proprietary Unix: $4.02 billion, -2%
    Mainframe: $1.7 billion, +12%
    Linux: $1.02 billion, +57.3%

    That leaves $.94 billion unaccounted for; I was thinking this chunk could be VMS and NSK revenues, but that makes it difficult to fit HP's 32.5% share of x86 revenues into the $.94 billion left over when you subtract it plus HP's $1.17 billion in proprietary Unix sales from HP's $3.07 billion total sales. (And that's ignoring HP's Q1 IA64 sales, which were very substantial.)

    Of course all these questions are surely answered in the report itself, but I'm not gonna pay 95 bucks [gartner.com] to find out.

    *How do I know the figures in the com.com article are QoQ and not YoY? Because the Gartner summary (linked above) puts overall YoY revenue growth at 24.1%, not the 9.3% reported in the article. Which makes both the 57.3% Linux growth and the 12.5% Sun decline even more stunning.

    • Re:Much better write-up of same data (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Torulf ( 214883 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:26AM (#9275123)
      OK, let's do some forecasting. What every slashdotter wants to know is, of course, when Linux will be bigger than Windows. Based on the numbers in the articles and linear forecasting, here's what we get*:
      Servers
      Q1/04 Q2/04 Q3/04 Q4/04 Q1/05 Q2/05 Q3/05 Q4/05
      Win 4,0 | 4,8 | 5,7 | 6,9 | 8,3 | 9,9 | 11,9 14,3
      Lin 1,0 | 1,5 | 2,2 | 3,4 | 5,1 | 7,6 | 11,4 17,1

      Databases
      2002| 2003| 2004| 2005| 2006
      Win 2,7 | 2,8 | 2,9 | 3,0 | 3,1
      Lin 0,1 | 0,3 | 0,8 | 2,0 | 5,2
      So, basically we can come to the conclusion that Linux will surpass Windows as a server platform by the end of next year, both on platform sales and on database sales.

      There, now I told you what you wanted to hear, so mod me up!

      *No, this is not realiable. It is extremely unlikely that this quater's growth will continue for 2 years
    • That leaves $.94 billion unaccounted for;
      Well yes that's right. They're using a Pentium.

  • In 2002, 2 Windows Server: 1 PAID Linux Server (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:32PM (#9274532)
    From IDC's 2002 stats from last fall, there was 1 (23.1%) PAID Linux server for every 2 (55.1%)Windows Servers sold.
    http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5088233.htm l.
    This does not include the Linux servers created from free downloads.

    With the massive increase of Linux servers, what is the ratio between Windows Server against PAID Linux server.

  • The problem with Gartner reports and Linux (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Glamdrlng ( 654792 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:56AM (#9274854)
    Sometime last year I set up a linux snort server at work. Certainly a low-end server, by most standards. Did Gartner take this into account? I certainly didn't tell them, and I doubt they monitored me as I downloaded the iso's.

    If gartner's stats are strictly based on data from redhat, IBM, etc, how can they possibly account for all of the "other" installs? I certainly hope these stats won't be used to calculate market share...

  • Changing attitudes (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:59AM (#9275015)
    At my university where I work in the IT department, if you would suggest a Windows server for anything today they'd have your head examined. Linux has become the defacto web and database server around here. It's not just that it's cheaper, it's better and you don't have to manage licenses which is a huge deal in a place like this where we can barely keep track of all the new machines that are constantly coming in.

    I'm also very happy to see that when we place the order for personal computers for post graduate students, about 1 in 5 actually specifically requests a Linux workstation these days. That would have been unheard of just a few years ago.

  • Analysts run in packs - IDC numbers out tonight (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:50AM (#9275197)
    According to an article at Tekrati Industry Analyst Reporter [industryan...porter.com] tonight, IDC is saying Linux Server sales grew revenue at 56.9% and unit shipments at 46.4%. Also, they have a report stating Linux servers near the $1 billion mark in quarterly revenue. You can get to the IDC release off the Tekrati article or go to IDC [idc.com] directly.

  • One huge problem with counting (Score:4, Informative)

    by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @06:46AM (#9275936)
    I don't know about you guys but I have two huge HP boxes that do a ton of stuff. These two clustered servers serve up 150 desktops, handle the company email, order entry processing, mysql database, postgres database, plone server, internal intranet, file serving.

    Try doing that much stuff with two windows boxes. A windows installation rarely runs more than a single application.

    What you really need to ask is what is the potential of those linux boxes that are shipped
  • Why do I get the feeling that I'll soon see one of those "get the facts" banners claiming that Gartner has determined installing Linux will cause your server to explode?

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