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Server Operating Systems

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Windows 2003 wins. Solaris is second and IBM AIX is third. The Linux market is hotting up we can see, but not just 'there' yet-they have 16 index points in their favor in total. Last year's tables saw three different versions of Windows competing-NT, 2000 and 2003. With the lifecycle of Win NT and 2000 at an end, it looks like atleast a majority of them have upgraded to Win 2003. We also see a fall in Linux's fortunes: RHL loses 36 index points with a 12 point drop for other Linux distros. In the UNIX world, Solaris loses 19 points but gains three places over last year (no Win NT and fall for

RHL).

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The NetWare share is still shrinking- from 19 last year to just 6 index points this time-a fall it shares with HP-UX.The loyalty matrix predicts this trend is going to continue. With 86% of Windows customers sticking to their software, they have 21% of NetWare users converting. A mere 5% of them wish to move to any variant of Linux. However, Linux users reflect the same mentality — 77% of them staying put and just 6% wishing to move to Windows and another 6% to Solaris. Novell NetWare is actually where all the action is. Their customers seem to be in a confused state. Half their existing customers want to stay, while others want to move, either to Linux/UNIX or to Windows. However, 94% of Solaris users will remain with Sun, with just 6% opting for Windows.There does not seem to be any major trend in the region or industry breakup for this usage. A lot of those polled seemed to be from the manufacturing industry and a majority of them preferred Windows. A significant percentage of these users were from the South and North zones.The largest user base for NetWare seems to be from the Telecom/media industry and from companies with a 50-100 Cr turnover. Combining that information with the brand-shift indicator, we expect that these are old customers of NetWare, in the process of migrating to other platforms.



The IBM AIX is an open UNIX platform and runs mainly on their pSeries and eServer platforms. As we can see from the big-iron categories (workgroup and high-end servers), those servers are doing well too, with IBM in the #1 spot in HE servers and #2 in the workgroup segment. This is perhaps the biggest reason why AIX is at third spot in this category.

Brand

Shift (%) 2003

Windows and Solaris on the other hand, are on higher steps in the podium simply because their market is dual — bundled with branded servers, as well as sold in the market. Sun Solaris recently became an open source and free product and perhaps this accounts for its rise to second spot — but the future does not indicate significant moves to that platform (just 15% of those polled).

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