The Four Hundred

Linux may be getting a bad rap because of concerns with the SCO-IBM and Red Hat-SCO lawsuits, but the most recent study put together by D.H. Brown Associates, which has earned itself a name in recent years by providing comparisons of the popular server computing platforms, doesn't indicate that the bloom is off the Linux rose as far as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Sun Microsystems are concerned. If anything, the Fab Four of IT are trying to convince corporate computing departments that they are the best one to give their data centers and desktops a makeover with some Linux flair.

In a new report released two weeks ago called Linux Strategies and Solutions 2003: Linux Server Suppliers Contend for Leadership, DHBA analyst Pierre Fricke, who is executive vice president and research director, compares and contrasts the Linux products and strategies of the four dominant IT players. To overuse yet another metaphor, which is nonetheless apt, DHBA (like just about everyone else, including SCO) believes that Linux has reached a tipping point as of the advent of the Linux 2.4 kernel, and seems poised to extend its popularity in the data center and--no matter what the naysayers may believe--on the desktop with the release of the Linux 2.6 kernel.

Linux is not driving Linux do much as industry forces. According to Fricke, the whole IT market is focused on three things when it comes to infrastructure: reducing costs, attaining diverse suppliers for products, and the need for flexibility for a solution. With Windows, there is only one operating system platform provider--Microsoft--and excepting entry servers where Advanced Micro Devices has a toehold, only one chip supplier--Intel. With Unix, each Unix has been tied to a single processor architecture: AIX on Power, HP-UX on PA-RISC, Solaris on Sparc, SCO Unix on Intel.

The Red Hat and SuSE distributions of Linux are available on 32-bit and 64-bit platforms using Intel or AMD chips and are available to run natively on current or future platforms from IBM and HP that are also running their Unix or proprietary environments. Dell doesn't have a RISC/Unix base to protect and only sells Intel platforms running Windows or Linux, and has positioned itself as a means to get off of Unix and on to Lintel iron. If you wonder why IBM, HP, and Sun are eager to go at their own substantial Unix installed bases with Lintel solutions or Linux partitions on RISC iron, this is the only way to keep Dell out. Linux is a common denominator across the four server suppliers, and it will be the common denominator across the ISV community, too.

"Linux has driven both customer and vendor interest," Fricke says in the report. "Many see Linux as a way to keep the industry open and to balance what some see as Microsoft's control. Customers increasingly prefer diversity of supply in their IT operations. Vendors want to ensure diversity of choice. Both see Linux helping them achieve their objectives."

It has taken some time, but IBM and HP have put Linux on par with their other environments, including ones they own and Microsoft's Windows. HP has 5,000 Linux services specialists in the field, and IBM has 2,500 specialists. Dell and Sun cannot field that kind of Linux army, but they have picked their targets and they are chasing them with a vengeance with their Linux products and partners. All of the server vendors now have relationships with both Red Hat and SuSE, and it seems likely that unless the SCO suits completely derail the Linux train, these two vendors will emerge as the main alternatives in entry servers and workstations to each other as well as to Microsoft.

But for now, says Fricke, Microsoft is a bit paranoid about fearing Linux as a replacement for Windows. "Alone among major IT vendors, Microsoft continues to view Linux xenophobically. Yet, despite the hype about Linux competing with Microsoft, Linux is more effectively consolidating and standardizing the Unix industry." Fricke say that Linux is still a do-it-yourself proposition when it comes to building an OS-middleware-database stack, and that Microsoft, particularly with Windows 2003 and .NET services, offers a "tightly integrated, high-value software stack."

In one of the funnier passages in the study, Fricke picks on Sun a little bit, as seems to be the sport these days. "Dell, HP, and IBM are exploiting the similarity between Solaris and Linux to drive migration services. . . Sun is exploiting the similarity between Solaris and Linux to offer architecture, integration, security, availability, and managed services to help customers construct a Linux and Solaris environment." IBM is putting Linux in partitions across its eServer line or running it natively, HP will run Windows, Linux, or HP-UX side by side in its Integrity line of Itanium servers, but Sun seems to be the target. Small wonder Sun has suddenly seen the wisdom in putting Solaris 9 on X86 servers and supporting Linux on these same machines.