The LinuxWorld show will open its doors this week, and users and retailers of Linux are apparently feeling more optimistic than this time last year. The number of exhibitors is up from 120 to 150 and the number of people attending the exhibition is expected to be greater than the 16,800 who attended last year.
The Meta group has predicted that by 2007 Linux will be run on 45% of servers and Gartner has predicted that they expect Linux server shipments to double in the next year from 400,000 to 800,000 – generating $4bn in sales. At present Linux is primarily used in low-end servers, but Goldman Sachs has predicted a move towards high-end servers which are responsible for the more mission-critical tasks.
The money being generated by Linux vendors is still poor when compared to the hardware vendors, as an example an Aberdeen analyst has told ZDNet that: "If Red Hat Advanced Server is part of a deal with Oracle (9i database software) on a cluster of four Dell machines, each of which has four CPUs, Oracle gets $60,000 a CPU, or $960,000, Dell gets $150,000 or so for the hardware, and Red Hat will get $10,000".
However, RedHat are counting on their RedHat Network and they are to integrate the NOCpulse monitoring software with RHN soon, which allows users to see where bottlenecks exist in their server setup. SuSE are also including Codeweavers software with their latest release, which allows some Windows software like IE and Office to be used with Linux, to lure consumers into buying their software.