Posted on 02/05/2005 7:02:30 AM PST by ShadowAce
I've reported in Windows IT Pro UPDATE several times over the years about Linux and its potential to unseat Windows Server as the most used enterprise OS. As a general rule, each January seems to bring a collection of "This Will Be the Year of Linux" stories, typically from analysts who've been bowled over by the Linux hype. To be fair, I've always assumed that Linux and Windows would some day run neck-and-neck in the server world, with Linux's perceived security, cost, and reliability advantages as the major reasons. Also, the past few years have been tough on Microsoft, as the company has suffered through a mind-boggling series of security snafus.
The Linux hype has just one little problem. Despite steady improvements over the past several years and the support of major IT companies such as IBM, Novell, and even Sun Microsystems, Linux seems stuck in a perpetual holding pattern, unable to eat away at Microsoft's server market share. And as the PC industry comes out of an economic recession and enterprises resume technology spending, it's interesting to note that Microsoft solutions, not open-source solutions such as Linux, are making the biggest gains.
Case in point: In its most recent quarterly earnings announcement last week, Microsoft once again beat forecasts and set an earnings record. Record earnings happen so regularly at Microsoft now that it's almost not worth mentioning. But key to the company's success, interestingly, is its Server and Tools division, which is responsible for such products as Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. The Server and Tools division made revenues of $2.8 billion in the quarter ending December 31, 2004, the same amount of money as the Information Worker division, which sells the Microsoft Office cash cow, made. Indeed, Server and Tools almost edged out Microsoft's other cash cow, the Windows Client division, which earned $3.2 billion.
Those results are amazing. Server and Tools grew more than 18 percent year-over-year, compared with flat or single-digit growth for Windows Client and Information Worker. SQL Server growth topped 25 percent. And Exchange 2003 is off to the fastest start of any Microsoft server product. These figures indicate two things: First, the IT industry is spending money again. Second, Microsoft's server products are kicking butt, and they're doing so at a point in time in which all the core products--Windows Server, Exchange, and SQL Server--are fairly mature. And because both Windows Server and SQL Server will see major updates this year--Windows 2003 Release 2 (R2) and SQL Server 2005, respectively--we might expect the upgrade treadmill to keep revenues rolling for quite a while.
"Our server business has a track record like the [New England] Patriots in the NFL playoffs," Microsoft chief financial officer (CFO) John Connors said, according to a report by Todd Bishop of the "Seattle Post Intelligencer." The comparison was carefully selected, I think. The Patriots, which have advanced to the Super Bowl in three of the last four years, are seen as a modern sports dynasty and widely respected for their leadership and team-oriented attitude. Microsoft would like to see its server products as well-respected as the Patriots are and would like to foster the notion that, although each individual server has certain strengths, they work together in such a way that the whole is more valuable to customers than the individual parts.
Some key challenges will still bedevil Microsoft as it attempts to fight back against the Linux threat, although recent history suggests the company might have finally latched onto a winning strategy. First, Microsoft must counter the perception that Linux is more secure than Windows. We're just starting to see some people come around to the notion that a largely untested solution such as Linux can be as insecure or more insecure than Windows, given improper configuration.
Second, Microsoft must prevent an upswing in support for Linux and other open-source solutions in world, regional, and local governments. In some cases, Microsoft has won government contracts by sweetening deals financially. But more often than not, fear of moving to an unknown and unproven system has kept many governments firmly in the Windows camp. And widely publicized Linux conversions--such as the one in Munich, Germany--have predictably run into problems. More important, they still represent a small portion of the overall worldwide government IT market.
Third, Microsoft should continue pushing its integration approach, which is truly a huge competitive advantage. Turnkey products such as Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 and the awesome services industry built around it are unparalleled in the open-source world and will likely continue to be so for some time. Although it's interesting to make product-to-product comparisons--such as Windows 2003 versus Red Hat Enterprise Linux--few customers think in such fine-grained ways. Enterprises want solutions. And I think this is an area in which Microsoft comes out on top.
Fourth, I think Microsoft has finally won the battle over cost. Depending on whom you talk to, Linux solutions are cheaper or as expensive as Windows-based solutions. That comparison doesn't resonate very loudly with IT administrators who are already familiar with Windows and would dearly miss functionality and compatibility if they left the platform. Even if some Windows solutions are a bit more expensive than Linux-based alternatives, the benefits of Windows often outweigh what is essentially a small price differential, spread out over time.
So what do you think? Is Linux the next big thing, or will it simply snag a few key niche markets like most of Microsoft's past competitors have?
Linux/Microsoft Ping!
PArt of the issue - which IS changing is the number of legacy apps still running. I work in healthcare IT and so many new applications coming out are running Linux that it is not funny - often from developers experience in ecommerce that requires systems to be cheap and bulletproof.
Now that the industry has matured more, the apps aren't receiving the press outside of its niche, target audience. Hence people aren't seeing the growth overall as they did 15-20 years ago.
"Paul Thurrott" - Bill Gates' latest pen name(?)
I'd say that this author is a wee bit biased (of course, I am too). But I don't think he is being entirely honest here. He talks of the perceived benefits of Linux vs what he describes as the actual benefits of Windows. Howsoever, he does have a point on the amount of units sold. Given that, it is easy to assume that windows rules on the Internet, when that (from what I've read) is just plain not the case.
Close. Bill signs Paul's paycheck.
Linux is primarily used in environments where high data output are necessary such as supercomputing environments and in trafficking of Internet data.
Ever try to teach a business systems analyst how to traverse around inside a Unix box? From my limited experience, it’s like teaching a stroke victim to walk again. Because most got their literacy from PCs, whatever demands their administration’s going to need to be windows based.
Unix had made great inroads from mainframes into healthcare when I worked in it in the late 90 (with Ernst & Young in LA), but I didn’t see it moving into an environment dominated by Microsoft.
The legal shadow hanging over Linux is a major factor imho. When this is cleared up, or at least there is a bit more visibility, I think alot of corporate IT managers who are on the sidelines will dip the proverbial toe into Linux (or to come out of the closet on their current deployments). The enterprise service and support products from Red Hat and SUSE are really quite compelling, at least server side. Seriously, how many people do you know who are truly happy with say MS IIS or Exchange?
In 1995 I was just learning Novell Netware. Netware ruled. Novell had the world by the donkey. Everyone was wanting to run Netware. CNEs were commanding bigtime money. Novell amassed millions in cash reserves, had no debt, and was the darling of Wall Street. Novell became ARROGANT.
At the time, Microsoft was just releasing Windows 95, and oh yeah, they had some glorified peer to peer solution called NT 3.51. It wasn't much, and nothing really ran on it, and it crashed a lot, and there weren't many administrative tools for it.
Now it's 2005. Windows servers have huge amounts of market share. The MCSE is a common credential. Everyone runs M$ products. M$ has, at last count, $500 billion in the bank. While no longer the darling of Wall Street, they are paying dividends now.
The Buzz, momentum, and hype has gone to Linux. Linux in many ways still can't compete with XP on the desktop, but it now runs servers as well as anything M$ produces. Hundreds of thousands of people keep working on Linux every day, and major competitors to M$ have dumped massive amounts of their code into the project.
By comparison, Microsoft hasn't released a significant upgrade (ie, DOS to Win95) in years to its server software, or its Office suite, or its desktop. Worse yet, they've lost all credibility due to missed deadlines, dropped features, security concerns, and not a small amount of fear among its partners. They are ARROGANT.
And so the globe spins, and the "goes around, comes around" thing happens.
I think he may be right about the server/database/back office type stuff, but if Microsoft cannot get the spam and virus and spyware situation under control, they are going to lose significant desktop share to Linux and Mac.
Most of the Windows computers I've used at other people's houses in the last year run like a ten-year-old Pentium II because of all the spyware infestation.
-ccm
The "Legal shadow" isn't there.
Novell (among others) has offered legal idemnification to those running SuSE. That means that Novell would pay the legal bills, etc should things go wrong in the copyright wars.
What shadow there is is caused by a lawsuit from SCO. The money to sue Novell, IBM, DCX and AutoZone AT THE SAME TIME comes from a venture capital company that was "introduced" by Micro$oft to SCO.
You wanna try Groupwise 6.5 on a SuSE SLES9 box? I'll make sure you get the trial software....
Linux desktops aren't as good as XP, and they do take some getting used to. If your end user just uses one app plus email, this is acceptable, but don't confuse general XP friendliness with that of Linux.
On the other hand, the Linux server stuff rocks. And, what end user cares what is going on in the server room, so long as it works well?
I think the author is being quite realistic. I manage around 45 different servers approx 10% are Linux based and strangely these boxes give us the most grief. We have had a succession of Linux Gurus come and go and still these boxes don't work quite right.
Our Solaris and Windows boxes, on the other hand, never have or rarely have any issues. It's important to note that most of our management tools are Windows Centric (which of course helps alot). But overall management wise the Windows boxes are really quite reliable. (yes even NT4 hehe).
Linux, to me at least, just isn't ready for prime time. I had a fantastic Solaris contractor bluntly tell me that Red Hat and Linux in general was not advisable in a production environment and at this point I tend to agree.
Sure doesn't square with my experience. In 2004 about 2/3 of the six or so organizations whose operations I know initiated or added to Linux servers.
Note that revenue is not a reasonable way of describing Linux growth. Of these same organizations only one has paid for all its copies of Linux. More typical is to buy one copy, clone the rest. That is perfectly legal (and for that matter is the practice I recommend).
Lol if you set it up wrong its just as insecure as windows... Wow
I guess that the Solaris guy, who competes with Linux, will have to explain why tons of Sun code just got dumped into the Linux world?
What are you running on those Linux boxes? Have you looked at the new Novell OES - Linux betas?
To some degree but what is really helping them is teh EOL of NT. People are skipping right over 2k and going to 2k3 to replace their old NT4 systems..
While I do not use Windows myself for a desktop OS, I can at least understand the reason why people do use it.
What I cannot fathom is why anyone uses it as a server OS. It is truly awful as a server OS.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.