Ellison: Linux will wipe Microsoft out of data center

InfoWorld ^ | 4/1/03 | Stacy Cowley

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

NEW YORK -- At a gathering here Tuesday of current and potential Oracle ISV (independent software vendor) partners, Oracle Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison extolled the virtues of Linux and predicted that the open-source operating system will soon decimate Microsoft in the battle for the data center market.

"(Microsoft has) already been killed by one open-source product. Slaughtered, wiped out, taken from market dominance to irrelevance," Ellison said, speaking of the Apache Web server's displacement of Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Services) technology. "They had a virtual monopoly on Web servers, and then they were wiped off the face of the earth. And it's going to happen to them again on Linux."

Ellison's version of Web server history is a bit shaky, though, according to research and services company Netcraft. The company's survey of Web server market share shows Apache already heading toward a leading market position by the time IIS appeared on the field in 1996. Although IIS is currently the No. 2 Web server technology, behind Apache, it never gained more than a 35 percent market share, according to Netcraft, which tracks IIS's current market share at about 30 percent.

Ellison's characteristically dramatic predictions came during a showcase event following Oracle's announcement last week of new efforts to spur ISV adoption of Linux. Tuesday's gathering featured several customers discussing their experiences with projects involving Oracle technology deployed on Linux, and a panel discussion among Oracle partner ISVs working on Linux support.

Ellison concluded the session with a few brief remarks about the speed, cost and flexibility advantages Linux offers over proprietary systems, then invited questions. A query about his view on Linux's future, especially on the desktop, prompted his dire predictions about what the open-source movement will do to key rival Microsoft.

While Windows gets all the attention, the Office suite is Microsoft's real monopoly, and once a viable Office alternative is available for Linux, "all hell will break loose," Ellison said.

Ellison deemed the Sun Microsystems Inc.-backed OpenOffice.org suite "almost usable," and predicted that as such software becomes more robust, Linux will begin making inroads into the desktop market in price-sensitive regions such as China and India .

"It will take many years, but (Microsoft) will eventually have to compete. It'll be a whole new world for them. I'm looking forward to it," Ellison said.

He also addressed the utility computing model being championed now by several major vendors, most notably IBM, which is heavily promoting its "on-demand computing" vision.

Vendors are correct to focus on offering customers simpler ways to handle their IT infrastructure, but too much emphasis is placed on hosted offerings, Ellison said. What should matter for customers isn't whether their servers are located in their own data center or in a vendor's; the real advantages of a utility, IT-as-a-service model is that it shifts the burden of installing and maintaining complex systems away from customers and toward their technology providers, who specialize in such matters, Ellison said.

The advantages of a one-size-fits-most, mass-production IT model and of labor specialization should have been obvious to IT buyers long ago, he said.

"The computer industry is finally moving from a cottage industry to an industrial industry. We're moving at breakneck pace toward the 19th century," Ellison quipped.

One potential Oracle partner attending the event said that message resonated with him.

"Larry has great clarity of thought," said Mark Hayward, president of Mark Hayward, a Mountain Lakes , New Jersey , software development and consulting firm. "His comments about the value of expertise and the economics of scale were interesting. It's a very good insight that I think has gotten lost."

Hayward said he came to the event at Oracle's urging. His company recently finished a $10-million, Oracle-based custom development project for a financial company, through which he built ties with Oracle. Now Hayward 's organization is focusing on developing and selling several standalone software products.

The company's first product, a collaboration and knowledge management system aimed at law firms and legal departments, isn't a good candidate for a Linux port because the legal industry remains heavily dependant on Microsoft technology, Hayward said. But he's considering Linux for use in the company's current project, a point-of-sale (POS) system for magazine retailers.

The system is being designed in conjunction with a client and will then be packaged for sale to other organizations, Hayward said.

"We'll definitely be evaluating Linux for parts of the POS system," he said. "It makes sense for retail."

[Registered]

Is Lockhart still working there? If so, no doubt, any ship he's on is on a slow drop to the bottom of the ocean..

[sarasota]

Yeah, ok General Ellison...whatever color the sky is in your universe.

[ShadowAce]

Are ya gonna ping the Butterfly on this one?

[D-fendr]

While obvious, this has a good chance of coming to pass:

While Windows gets all the attention, the Office suite is Microsoft's real monopoly, and once a viable Office alternative is available for Linux, "all hell will break loose,"

[KneelBeforeZod]

Once Star office comes out from SUN, Microsoft Office will be a relic. Microsoft is very worried about it. haw haw.

anyone remember Ellison going on Oprah as one of "America's Most Eligible bachelors?" He's got so much money he's got to weigh it and he can't even get a trophy wife. maybe he just needs to settle for a nice homely girl

[KneelBeforeZod]

Are ya gonna ping the Butterfly on this one?

who is that? Bushdude2000 or whatever his name is?

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Microsoft's best product has to be Outlook Express.

[Nick Danger]

Ellison likes to tug on Superman's cape. He gets a kick out of it. There were a couple of days during the high tech stock boom when Larry Ellison was richer than Bill Gates. It didn't last long, but he had a smug-fest over it. They've both lost billions since, but neither of them is going to the poorhouse any time soon.

[SolutionsOnly]

Ellison is taking lessons from Iraqi Information Ministers.

[Ingtar]

The big laugh that I get from this is the 3 year claim that Apache dominates the market. Sure, if you count every little hobbyist that has a site, Apache is big. When Port80 did an actual survey of the Fortune 1000, IIS was on 54% of the servers. Netscape 21%. Apache 18%

So, the group that promotes Linux says, "Apache." The group pushing MS says, "IIS." Is this a case of the truth being somewhere in between?

[SoDak]

As I said on a recent Ellison thread, I tend to believe just the opposite of whatever Ellison is claiming.

[hchutch]

Lot of talk from Larry Ellison. I wonder if Oracle's butt can cahs the check Larry's mouth is writing.

[Joe Bonforte]

Why does this thread remind me of another one a little further up the list?

Iraq Calls on U.S., U.K. to Surrender

[Proud_texan]

It's not a pond I swim in but I think it's interesting, fully 15 of the 16 people that I know that worked for Oracle have left in the last 18 months. Don't know why, heck, they could have been fired for all I know.

And I wonder if MySQL is taking anything out of Oracle (I don't know if it's scalable enough to compare, tis probably an ignorant question). Funny he didn't mention it.

[discostu]

You mean this Star Office that's been out for years:
http://www.ucs.ed.ac.uk/usd/scisup/faq/star_office_review.html

Guess not. Star office is nice, but it takes a lot more than nice to become king of the hill. One of the things it takes is bloodlust, which so far nobody has in higher proportion than MS.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Market Share for Top Servers Across All Domains August 1995 - March 2003

Netcraft Ltd 2003

[Centurion2000]

Not happening for at least 5 years.

[Petronski]

Here's a tough one: who is creepier?

Ellison or Gates?

[thedugal]

Ellison is missing the one factor which brought down all of the OSes of the 80s and early 90s, the software developer. Why would a software company invest millions of dollars to build an application which is going to be pirated at record levels among the "open source" community? Open source has more to do with young kids getting software for free than it has to do with developers having source code available.

Open source is great from the perspective of the developer who wants to more easily build or modify software. However, ease of programming only affects your company's performance and cost of development. Unfortunately for Linux, that is the less important half of the equation. It doesn't matter how much it costs to develop your product if you can sell it for profit above cost. It also doesn't matter how cheaply you can develop your product if you can't sell it for profit, regardless of cost. Pretty basic capitalism there.

There are groups and individuals who volunteer to build software, and God Bless 'em, but the rest of us are trying to make a living. Some very large corporations get involved in "open source" because they can actually make money off the residual effect of those efforts. Sun sells hardware and is also still trying to distribute Java, so they have a vested interest and money to back it. However, the small software firm cannot make a buck from "open source". Yes, there are a handful of companies that are surviving with "open source", but they don't tell the story of the thousands of startups who got their teeth kicked in. Anyone who is familiar with "open source" and honest has come across countless abandoned "projects" which were started by well-intentioned college kids who then graduated, got a job, and dropped the project.

Fact of the matter is, even if Linux becomes viable, and even if Open Office becomes fully compatible with MS Office, Linux has no chance of taking over Microsoft. Not that noone or no company could, but the model Linux is based on is flawed in a capitalist society. By the time Linux catches up with MS in the office suite, the technology will move on to 3D OS, voice interfaces, and applications which are just imagination today. Linux will not have the application developers to keep up with the range of products that will be available on a Microsoft OS.