The Unix Competition Is Still as Heated as Ever

Published: May 29, 2008

by Dan Olds

The Unix wars continue to rage as three vendors--IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems--compete for the modest growth of this very large, but mature, market. Customers are faced with trying to keep abreast of technology advances and making sense of vendors' claims about their own vast superiority and their rivals' pitiful ineptitude. Gabriel Consulting Group's latest semi-annual Unix Vendor Preference Survey goes straight to the data center to find out what real IT workers have to say about the major Unix vendors on a wide-ranging set of criteria including technology, quality, support, and TCO.

GCG also gathered their input on the challenges they're experiencing in their own data centers and the IT trends and advances they see on the horizon. We surveyed 290 people who have the best idea of what's happening on the raised floors of their enterprises--they work there every day. They're data center personnel, IT managers, system administrators, and system architects, not CXOs. This group represents a broad continuum of organization sizes; roughly 40 percent are from SMBs (1,000 employees or fewer), and 11 percent are from large enterprises of 10,000 or more. The average respondent controls 25 to 50 Unix systems.

Diversity is alive and well in the Unix world; almost 60 percent of survey participants have Unix systems from all three major vendors, with 32 percent report using two vendors and only 10 percent have standardized on a single vendor. Although the vast majority of these respondents have systems from multiple vendors, they tend to give a single vendor the majority of their current Unix server business. In this version of the survey, the distribution of "majority" vendors was fairly even: 36 percent of the respondent base favored Sun, 34 percent indicated IBM, and 30 percent said HP had the bulk of their Unix business. Our participants are clearly well-qualified to compare, contrast, praise, denounce, and generally breakdown the game of the three major vendors.

In order to adjust for the slight differences in the percentages of survey participants who identified Sun, IBM, or HP as their majority vendor, we use something called a VPI (Vendor Preference Index) score in the charts. The VPI compares the number of "votes" a vendor gets to the number of respondents who said they have standardized on that vendor. It sounds a bit complicated, but it's actually a very simple calculation designed to level the playing field between vendors and remove respondent bias in the survey. A score of 100 on any given question is par, meaning that the same number of customers who have standardized on a particular system also voted for that vendor on that question. A score significantly under 100 is not too good, because it means customers who have standardized on systems from one vendor voted for another. A score significantly over 100 is, of course, great. This method allows us to understand how participants rate server brands against each other, not just measure how prevalent each vendor is.

Our Unix Vendor Preference is a pretty comprehensive survey; we asked respondents to give us their opinions on topics such as power, cooling, and data center real estate issues, as well as virtualization, buying trends, and their future purchasing plans. A deep dive section tests customer loyalty to their favorite brand. This summary report outlines the overall results from the Vendor Face-Off section of the survey, where respondents rate and rank the major Unix vendors on a wide variety of technical and support criteria. Subsequent reports will cover other results from this survey.

This was the closest finish yet in the three years we've been doing this survey. IBM can claim the overall win once again, but this time has eked out the top spot by only a few percentage points; HP has surged to a very strong second place, with Sun placing third. We've broken this Vendor Face-Off part of the survey into two sections, Technology and Customer Support. Let's take a look at Technology first.

The Technology section contains 19 separate categories that cover a wide range of technical attributes. On a typical question--say Overall Technology--customers are instructed to select the vendor who they believe is in the lead in that category. Customers can also say that there's no difference between vendors or that they aren't sure of the leader. In most cases, the number of respondents choosing "no difference" or "not sure" is well under 10 percent.

As can be seen from the chart, IBM continues their three-year winning streak on technology criteria. However, the lead has been cut into quite a bit by Hewlett-Packard, who surged in this year's survey.

IBM won nine of 19 technology categories outright and tied in an additional category. The company's strongest categories were generally performance-based. IBM won the Overall Technology, Raw System Performance, and Processor Performance categories by wide margins over Sun and HP. IBM was also judged to have a stronger virtualization suite and a better Unix technology roadmap by a majority of survey respondents. IBM's AIX Unix operating system also received favorable attention from survey respondents, garnering wins in the OS Features and Identity/Permission Security Features categories.

Hewlett-Packard made a strong move into a close second-place finish in the technology categories, winning seven and tying for first in another. HP's biggest win was in the concisely named "Easiest Integration into Heterogeneous Data Centers" category, meaning that survey respondents found HP Unix systems the easiest to slide into existing infrastructures. HP also took the top spot in a couple of related categories: Quick and Easy Set-Up and Provisioning and Best Initial Quality. HP also topped IBM and Sun in the Observed Performance, Observed Availability, and Operating System Quality categories.

Although Sun notched only a single victory in the technology criteria section of the survey (OS Security: Data Protection), the company did do well in other survey areas. Respondents gave Sun the nod over HP and IBM in three very important categories in the facilities section of the survey: Most Energy-Efficient Unix Systems, Most Thermal-Efficient Unix Systems, and Most Space-Efficient Unix Systems. Sun also performed well on a series of questions that asked customers about vendor pricing practices; the company was credited for being Least Expensive on Best and Final Pricing and also judged Usually Best Value for the Money in Unix system pricing.

In the Vendor and Customer Support Criteria section of the survey, the race was essentially a tie; mere fractions of a point separated Hewlett-Packard and IBM. The 14 questions in this part of the survey focus on non-system vendor offerings and on how well the vendors keep their promises, both tangible and intangible.

Hewlett-Packard won three of the categories outright and tied for first with IBM in four others. While HP tied with IBM for first place in the Maintenance and Professional Service Quality categories, they posted a strong win over both IBM and Sun on the Provides Most Value for Service Dollar question. HP also won both sales quality categories (Best Direct Sales and Best Channel Organization) by a large margin.

IBM beat both HP and Sun on four Vendor and Customer Support categories, and tied with HP on four more. IBM was judged Best at Adhering to Their Roadmaps by a wide margin, and was also regarded as the Unix vendor who best Keeps Their Promises to customers. The company also topped HP and Sun in the Technological Capability category, and the timely Best at Supporting Virtualization/Consolidation. IBM and Hewlett-Packard tied in two of the most important categories, Best at Helping Lower TCO and Best at Helping Increase IT Efficiency, leaving Sun behind in a not-so-close third place.

Sun grabbed three wins one section of the survey: Desire to Drive Unix Innovation, Ability to Drive Unix Innovation, and Commitment to Unix. This indicates that customers are firmly convinced that Sun has the most at stake in Unix and will continue to push Unix computing ahead. Sun also performed well in the installed base section of the survey; Sun customers pledged higher levels of loyalty on most questions than either IBM or HP customers.

Summary

Suffice to say, the race for Unix dominance is more hotly contested than ever. Our Vendor Face-Off results show that IBM and HP are locked in a struggle for first place in customer hearts and minds. But Sun's strong performance in other survey sections tells us that it is still a player and has a solid chance to prosper. Subsequent Unix Vendor Preference reports will cover other survey results on virtualization and facilities issues and provide more detailed looks at vendor results.

Dan Olds is the founder of Gabriel Consulting Group, an IT industry analyst firm that focuses primarily on IT as it relates to business, showing companies how technology can be deployed in a more efficient and effective manner. You can contact him at gcginfo@gabrielconsultinggroup.com.

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