Clouds push Linux server sales in Q4

For hyperscale data center operators, the server is the business and there is no such thing as deferring purchases of new gear so long as there is growing customer demand for information. And not surprisingly, in the fourth quarter of this year, sales of density-optimized servers, as the box counters at IDC are now calling the …

[Richard Lloyd]

What about servers shipped with no OS?

Unfortunately, these surveys where only hardware shipped with a pre-installed OS are consdered do leave out a *huge* chunk of the servers sold (i.e. ones with no OS, which you can get from all the major OEMs).

I'm certain that a lot of Linux server installs are done on server hardware that didn't ship with any OS, but these machines just fall down the cracks - we can "guess" that they will mostly have a non-Windows OS on them (mainly because OEM Windows is cheaper than retail Windows, even in the server market), but we have no idea what flavours of OS are actually installed on them.

It's a shame these surveys don't actually include a "shipped with no OS" category - at the very least, we should know the size of that category compared to all the ones with OS'es pre-installed.

[Davidoff]

Re: What about servers shipped with no OS?

"I'm certain that a lot of Linux server installs are done on server hardware that didn't ship with any OS, but these machines just fall down the cracks - we can "guess" that they will mostly have a non-Windows OS on them (mainly because OEM Windows is cheaper than retail Windows, even in the server market)"

Not really. In the server world it's mostly very small companies that buy Windows with their servers. Probably the majority of server sales is done without OS, as customers get Windows Server via Microsoft's volume licensing schemes, which makes it much cheaper than buying an OEM version together with the server hardware.

[Matt Bryant]

Re: Re: What about servers shipped with no OS?

Agreed, all our MS installs are done on bare systems with volume licencing, much cheaper than OEM Windows. All our RHEL servers also come without OS. I'm a Linux supporter but I'm beginning to think the "it shipped with no OS, count it as a Linux box" is just Linux fanboi propaganda to hide the fact we're not really kicking Windows out of the datacenter as fast as was predicted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Iron

"Iron"

You do realise that is nearly as cringeworthy as people saying "K" instead of "thousand"?

[Matt Bryant]

Re: Iron

Yeah, but we like "iron" as it makes our little server farms sound more manly.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: "Iron"

Although of course nowadays it's mostly plastic.