Operating Platforms: Linux Faces Uphill Struggle

In the past 12 months, strong sales of Linux and its broader establishment in important server and workstation markets, coupled with its growing application base, finally signaled its emergence into young adulthood. Moreover, Linux's innate cost-effectiveness and ease of development nudged key proprietary Unix players, such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems, into the open software world.

Nevertheless, the little-operating-system-that-could still is not running its tracks into Microsoft's vast base of installed users in the enterprise computing, server and desktop marketplaces. And Linux holds little threat of derailing Windows anytime soon, says Dan Kuznetsky, an analyst at IDC, Framingham, Mass.

"The market is making the pie bigger," Kuznetsky says. "They are not taking a slice of the pie from each other." Due to its competitive solutions in infrastructure, cache proxy and print-serving solutions, as well as high-performance technical applications and Web-serving, Linux now holds a 24 percent share of the server market, according to IDC research.

As a nonproprietary operating system with an open-development environment, Linux attracts buyers looking for low-cost solutions and developers looking for flexibility and opportunity, industry experts say.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is not staying still. The Redmond, Wash.-based developer continues to maintain existing users and to upgrade its huge installed corporate base to

Windows 2000. Microsoft is also looking to expand its foothold

in server operating systems in both enterprise and new-economy Internet computing. In its first four months of availability this year, Windows 2000 license sales topped 3 million, according to Microsoft.

For its part, Linux is gaining widespread support to expand onto high-end platforms. When they launched the Open Source Development Laboratory in August, major players, including Dell, HP and IBM, put some muscle behind the goal of bringing Linux to enterprise computing. The partnership gives Linux software developers access to high-end servers for running and testing development. HP, IBM and Sun all support Linux as a strategic operating system.

Linux Competes Hard

To date, Linux has been most successful at the low-end server and technical-workstation levels. To compete in midrange and high-end, mission-critical applications, Linux must scale to and provide fail-safe operations such as high-availability clustering, says Bill Claybrook, an analyst at Boston-based research firm Aberdeen Group. HP and other vendors are already importing clustering technology to Linux because the operating system better supports this function than its Microsoft counterpart, Claybrook says.

In addition, powerful Unix applications are easier to port to Linux than Windows, industry experts say. "Linux competes very strongly against the low end of the Unix market, and it has made more inroads there than in the NT market," Claybrook says. A large company already using Windows, however, would be unlikely to switch to Linux, he acknowledges.

Most business users will continue to stick with Microsoft, IDC's Kuznetsky says. "If you want a lot of applications, you buy Windows," he says.

"If you're building solutions and looking for the lowest-cost platform, you buy Linux. The knowledgeable end-user buys Linux; the businessperson

buys Windows."

Satisfied Linux Customer

One satisfied Linux user is NetLedger, an application service provider in San Mateo, Calif., that offers a variety of Web-based small-business accounting and business-management solutions. NetLedger considered Solaris running on Sun workstations and Windows running on the Intel platform before it purchased Linux from solution provider VA Linux Systems, Fremont, Calif.

"All the fervor about the Linux platform tipped the scales favorably," says Dave Durkee, NetLedger's CIO.

With its data center running hundreds of computers, Durkee was looking for ease of administration as well as cost-effectiveness. "Microsoft products are geared to the single user," he says. "Yes, you can use them with a server, but they are difficult to work with and manage. They don't have a command-line interface, and there isn't an easy way to export the display."

NetLedger has been using Linux-based Apache, Java and Oracle applications since January. The company experienced only one wrinkle,a minor incompatibility between NFS and Oracle.

"We had [VA Linux] rewrite the kernel, and we were up-and- running in a week. Try getting Microsoft to do that," Durkee says.

Gaining Ground

NetLedger is not alone in its use of Linux: In 1999, Linux overtook NetWare as the main runner-up behind Microsoft in the server operating environment market, according to IDC. Linux shipments are expected to experience a compound annual growth rate topping 28 percent from 1999 to 2004, IDC predicts. Even with this growth, however, Linux seems unlikely to even dent Microsoft's installed base and momentum.

Once a big contender in the network operating system space, Novell puts its installed base at 3.8 million servers and 80 million users. The Provo, Utah-based company now is in the fight of its life to maintain that base, while at the same time trying to sell to competitor Microsoft's installed base in LANs, as well as Web, file, print and related server applications.

Novell, however, is not laying down its arms in the face of the double-barrel threats of Windows and Linux. "We expect [Microsoft] users to go to our platform entirely," says Jim

Tanner, director of network product management at Novell. The vendor recently reorganized in an effort to focus on Internet opportunities in network management, directory, content-distribution technologies and service.

Major Linux vendors include Caldera Systems, which recently acquired the server division of SCO; Pacific Hi-Tech; Red Hat Software; and SuSE.

Red Hat, Research Triangle Park, N.C., markets an easy-to-use version of Linux. Its financial backers include Compaq Computer, IBM, Intel and Oracle. Caldera, Orem, Utah, has developed a strong base with solution providers. Pacific Hi-Tech, Tokyo, is the key company for Linux expansion into Asia, while SuSE, Oakland, Calif., operates its core business in Europe and also maintains a presence in the United States.

Red Hat focuses on providing infrastructure solutions ranging from embedded devices to high-availability clusters and Web serving.