A Look at Windows Server Outselling Linux 450
THG writes "CoolTechZone.com has an interesting look at Linux's position in the market now that Microsoft has sold more Windows Server software than Linux. From the article: "The most important reason that Windows based servers are doing so well could be that programmers find it extremely easy to work on .Net and other related technologies (seamless integration). Plus, you have hassle free and rapid support from Microsoft, which is a comforting feature for corporate customers. When Windows Live comes in, we will see further integration between the server and online technical support areas, thereby making the troubleshooting process easier for in-house administrators and reducing overhead costs for the company."
Gartner... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, the study says that Windows based Servers accounted for 37 percent in revenue. Now traditionally, Windows based systems are more expensive than Linux based systems, so even if vendors sold lesser number of Windows systems, the price difference could ensure that Windows sales revenue was higher. This implies that, in terms of pure numbers, Linux could very well have outsold Windows.
Enough said. Nothing to see here. Move along...
I've recently redone the server end for [yet another] office (Linux based, of course) for which they certainly won't show up in Linux or Windows based sales "reports". Ever.
Linux is doing just fine...
You can download Linux for free (Score:1, Insightful)
Is it April Fools alreay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, you have hassle free and rapid support from Microsoft, which is a comforting feature for corporate customers
Hassle-free? Rapid? Man I gotta get whatever these guys are smoking....
Every try to report a bug in a Microsoft product and get a fix? You'll likely be waiting on the order of months. That is, if you get a fix at all.
No purchase necessary (Score:2, Insightful)
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very easy to sell more than nothing. You only need to sell it once!!!
Huh? Someone's not actually _used_ Windows support (Score:3, Insightful)
*ROFL* Wow, that's rich. What microsoft offers is not "hassle free" or "rapid support", but the illusion of such. If Red Hat, etc, could do that, they'd own.
In the past several months, my company has had to deal with Microsoft on 2 different calls. One was about Clusters, the other was MSMQ. Both were handled poorly - the first one, their answer was "apply this hotfix", they think it'll fix it, no promises, and no easy way to back it out (that they knew of). Niiice.
The second, I'm firmly convinced that our guys know more than the people who wrote the code - we've had to deal with some odd issues, and none of the tech support had a clue(and yes it was escalated a few times). Or a grasp of the primary language in the US. *grr*
And
Why Windows outsells Linux in $$$ (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention.... (Score:5, Insightful)
... that whenever a company buys a bunch of servers from say, Dell, and doesn't bother to specify on the order that some are Linux servers (since it doesn't save you any money for the hassle of making two orders, especially if you are using Debian or some non-supported distro anyway), they get counted towards *Windows* profits, even though they will be wiped as soon as they get to the company.
Integrated advertising?! (Score:1, Insightful)
I think this is crazy talk, but if he's right the world deserves an AD driven Windows OS.
It would kinda' be fun to be able to say "Windows Abomination" in normal company with a straight face.
Sales Figures for something thats free?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I love when they quote these sales figures because they mean next to nothing compared to an OS that is free and when most major hardware vendors are just NOW getting on board with Linux and even then, just half heartedly.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am fairly certain they knew what they were doing as they were trying to add to the continued confusion of Linux server "sales".
Microsoft wants everyone to believe that their TCO is lower than Linux when everyone knows it's not. By funding/writing misleading press releases, they can further blur (in the general public's mind) the lines that don't exist.
Re:Not to mention.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cred, where on cred is due... sigh (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said,
Re:Not to mention.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing I know of called "Linux" is a free operating system (which behaves a lot like UNIX), sold by dozens of different companies as a server environment, and also available for free. If there's some company out there called "Linux" who is just selling to the IT server market, it is no wonder MS is outselling them, as they must be very obscure.
No, it gets even better. (Score:5, Insightful)
THEN they go off about WHY Microsoft moves more units than Linux, even though they admit that they don't know that Microsoft DID move more units.
You'd think that "cooltechzone" might be a bit suspicious that units are not mentioned. Just a bit suspicious.
Re:Gartner... (Score:2, Insightful)
You gotta just love these personal anecdotes that everybody is so fond in telling us. They are so indicative of market trends.
"People, all you have to do is listen to my random personal experience to know the market trends. I'm important. Listen to me.......please"
sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. buy out the competition
2. use dominance in another market to push your product in this one
3. when that doesn't work simply tell people lies
so far i haven't seen much of:
4. improve your own product so that the customers like it more and pay for it
microsoft thwart the market system, anti monopoly laws and consumer soverignty yet again....
Re:What are they smoking? (Score:1, Insightful)
I deal with many support companies and in my opinion, MS is at the very top. In my cases, they have always put me in touch with very competent individuals and usually within minutes. They help resolve the problem and MS seems to always perform follow-up surveys to ensure quality.
Who do you call when you are having problems with gcc on your freely download Linux server?
ASP.NET, ADO.NET, and C# Windows apps are very easy to write and maintain. The Windows apps might not have that pretty purple scroll bar that Java has, but they look good anyway. (Sarcasm)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Duh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly, in some cases, the TCO of Linux in a certain role at a certain location will be more than the TCO of a Windows server (or group of servers) serving the same rule. I'm not saying that this is always the case, or even that it's usually the case, but at least some of the time, this will be true.
Is it just me, or did Microsoft pretty much `invent' the TCO term strictly to counter free software like Linux? Did the term exist before Linux did, or was it just Microsoft making it popular?
In any event, I'm not here to argue that Windows has a lower TCO than Linux. I'm just saying that it's not as `obviously' wrong as you make it sound.
Mediocracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cred, where on cred is due... sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at what happened with VS.NET 2005. After years of being half as productive as eclipse users MS finally gave them a decent build sytem, a unit testing framework, and something like javadoc. Needless to say they blatantly ripped off ant and junit all the while making their product incompatible of course. Somehow they forgot about ripping off hibernate and xdoclet though which I found odd.
Anyway after two years of working with primitive tools which didn't have any refactoring support or half the shit java developers have been taking for granted they now have a product which is 80% as good as eclipse. FOr the next two years eclipse will continue to pull ahead and the VS.NET people will not know any better because they finally got a few new features in VS and are soooooo happy and proud.
Re:Gartner...Money for nothing, labour for free. (Score:2, Insightful)
What leads you to the conclusion that krray made no revenue on that project?
Linux comperable on a revenue basis? (Score:3, Insightful)
Talk about Gartner making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If Linux is only a couple percentage points behind Windows servers on a [b]revenue[/b] basis it's Linux supporters who should be dancing in the streets. That's fantastic!
Crimeny, no wonder Ballmer comes flying in like some giant winged monkey every time there's talk of a big Linux conversion. They're scared...and should be.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, but insisting on quoting figures for Linux server "sales" indicates only a deliberate intent to mislead, since the majority of Linux servers out there are running on distros downloaded free of charge. Yes, I do know about RedHat Enterprise stuff, but I don't know anybody who uses it...
Re:Gartner... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are still, of course, plenty of people who work on Linux in their spare time. Some of the bigger contributers do it to get a job: After they have proven themselves as a major contributor, they can get a job doing the same thing.
Easy to outsell, not to outuse (Score:4, Insightful)
Therefore, you could easily say we've bought more windows servers than linux, even though it's probably greater than a 10-1 ratio of actual use.
Re:No, it gets even better. (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think that "cooltechzone" might be a bit suspicious that units are not mentioned. Just a bit suspicious.
Probably a marketing front site. Many marketing parasites are far more devious and deceptive than even most /.'ers give them credit, let alone the general public.
It's common practice to create and maintain plausible looking "alternative viewpoint" websites designed to manipulate opinion. and to submit posts and moderate on sites like /.. Marketers aren't stupid, they're quite happy to put in strawman viewpoints and other material just to make their marketing propaganda look plausible. On /. a classic is "I like linux but ..." and then proceed to trash any viewpoint except the one they're paid to push.
There's millions of dollars involved; do you think the ethics of a large percentage of marketing parasites is going to stop them from doing damn near anything they think they can get away with?
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Re:Microsoft technicial support is outstanding (Score:3, Insightful)
I decided to wipe it off, install SuSE Linux, and run Win XP in VMWare. All my work is Linux based at the moment. Of course it wouldn't activate as the "hardware" had changed so I called Microsoft and ended up at an Indian call centre.
Paraphrasing...
Me : I'd like to re-Activate Windows
Her : You're using an OEM version of Windows, you cannot put it on another machine
Me : It *IS* on the same machine, it's just running inside VMWare at the moment
Her : What's VMWare?
Me : It's a virtual machine that's running on the same laptop that Windows was pre-installed on
Her : I don't understand. You sound like you're telling the truth. Here's your activation key.
Of course, the actual conversation went on a lot longer and was a lot more frustrating, but I got there in the end. Basically the person at the other end had no idea what I was talking about, so gave me the key because I sounded trustworthy.
Bob
Re:Clueless article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Clueless article (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree.
It has all the ear-marks of a "Submarine" article, as defined by Paul Graham.
http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html [paulgraham.com]
That this is true is born out by IDC's evaluation of the data.
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;1754059
"After a long period focused on cutting costs and buying servers just to run current applications, enterprises are once again investing strategically in systems to handle future workloads, said IDC analyst Matt Eastwood. IT organizations are once again being asked to support real growth, he said."
This article contains some MS PR spin that the Gartner version did not: that purchases of Linux servers is short sighted because Linux server cannot be 'strategically' deployed but MS servers can. An odd assertion given the fact that many deploying Linux servers to replace Microsoft servers find that one Linux server can easily handle the load of 3 or 4 Microsoft servers, and do so more reliably and with less maintenance. Microsoft servers are notorious for being able to support only ONE application per server, a deployment model recommended by Microsoft itself, if not to improve MS server speed and stability then to improve Microsoft's sales figures.
As you point out, comparing sales levels of prior years with those given this year by Gartner and IDC, with Microsoft FUD wrappings, either Microsoft server shares have been declining while Linux' have been rising, or these "Consulting" firms are merely passing on MS PR memos with their own corporate dressing on them. I have no doubt that Linux server shares are rising, having grown from a few percent a few years ago to 31% this year, AND that Gartner was and is a mere extension of Microsoft's PR department. After all, they've been revealed as such in prior "research" reports that they put on line where they claimed the report was their work but they forgot to remove the Microsoft PR logo from the article.
MS Web servers in decline (Score:3, Insightful)
That explains why IIS is in decline [netcraft.com] in terms of market share and total numbers.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there's your problem, you asked an overblown geek something about financials and he either didn't know, or didn't care.
If you'd asked a CFO, then you would have gotten a very different picture, and I think you'd still be discussing the relative merits of drawn-down software licencing as a cost structure opposed to the tax-claimable options of the licences as software rental models amortized over the standard 3 year tax redemption period.
Go see your accounts depeartment, they'll tell you, to the penny, what you spent on software licences, renewals and maintenance agreements over anything up to 7 years ago.
The article does clarify (Score:3, Insightful)
That makes sense. Item A is grossly overpriced, yet there are lots of companies locked into it. Item B is free, though you can buy support and extensions if you want. Which is going to have a bigger net negative impact on your cash flow?
The title of the article should be "Windows Server sucks up more of your IT budget. Stop that!"
It's easy for a commercial server to outsell (Score:2, Insightful)
Not only that, some of the "commercial" distributions which while not being marketed as server platforms are perfectly usable as servers, just as reliable and scalable (especially after recompiling the kernel), and explicitly allow for use and redistribution of unlimited copies within the organization.
So: By counting sales of Microsoft Windows vs. single downloads or even sales of a single copy of say, Novell Linux, or even SuSE Linux or CentOS, you're (probably intentionally) skewing the stats. Sure, you may be "outselling" Linux, but are you really being deployed more than Linux? Doubtful. How many people download CentOS 10 different times for installation on 10 different servers?
How much more likely is that downloaded image going to be burned to DVDs and handed out and installed on separate boxes? Not only that, because imaging Linux is easier than it is to image Windows servers, how much more likely that servers are being deployed using Partimage and being set up in clusters for web or email servers?
The other day I posted that Microsoft is in the third stage of grief (http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169359