Unix Server Sales Down, Windows And Linux Sales Up
By Alex Trent
Expert Author
Article Date: 2010-06-08
IDC reports that Unix server revenue has dropped nearly 30 percent since last year. While Windows server hardware revenue was up almost 34 percent, Linux server demand was almost 21 percent.
The recession seems to have hit Unix Servers pretty hard. Other reasons for the decline could be that HP and IBM are rolling out new products now and later this year, that could put potential buyers in a wait and see position. With HP targeting the Itanium Market and IBM with their new Power 7 platform, this niche market could not be smaller. Everything other than ARM, x86, or x86 64 bit processors has declined in sales by over 25 percent. The other big thing that is impacting the Unix world is the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle. IDC expects the UNIX market to shrink, but not to disappear forever. Because there are only three big players in this small market though, it is likely we might see one of them on the auction market. Matt Eastwood, IDC group vice president said, "It's also important to note that we are in the middle of one of the sharpest periods of market inflection in a decade and we expect significant shifts in technology usage and market shares to occur as the recovery continues." Windows Servers got their biggest boost in history this first quarter. Originally, IDC said that Linux server sales were up 36.5 percent beating Windows server's 33.6 percent. IDC later revised the numbers, claiming that Linux only saw about 20.4 percent sales growth. Did they really have incorrect numbers or were they possibly influenced by an outside source to change such numbers? Maybe they just accidentally counted server sales with no OS attached to it as a Linux sale, which such a sale would have likely been. Whatever the true numbers, Windows and Linux server sales are both up this past quarter. Revenues in quarter one of 2008, before the crash, were some of the highest ever server sales. Even though sales were good this past quarter, most people are coming to the realization that we will never see numbers like that again.
About the Author:
Alex Trent is a staff writer for WebProNews
|
