This article claims that units shipped of Windows NT Server are growing rapidly, and outpacing the growth of Unix servers. Yawn. I've heard it all before, and while I think there is some truth to this, I don't think NT can maintain this pace, especially given all the horror stories I'm hearing about NT 5.0.

What bothered me was the story's statistics, specifically regarding Linux. The claim is that last year, NT accounted for 36% of server sales, Netware 26%, Unix 21%, Linux 7%, and OS/2 6%. Now, I should be happy. After all, Linux got mentioned, and it was listed ahead of OS/2. But something about this just doesn't smell right. Total unit sales were 3.5 million for 1997, according to the article. At 7%, that would mean that only 250,000 Linux servers were sold last year.

I have two problems with that figure. First, I believe Bob Young at Red Hat claimed something like 400,000 units sold last year, and I have no reason to doubt him. I don't know what Caldera's sales were. Substantially less, I'm sure, but even at only 100,000, that would give a figure double that of the CNET article. This doesn't include other commercial distributions like SUSE. Part of the problem may be what counts as a server. Every Linux system is capable of being a server, but not all are used as such. I have four Linux boxes at home, and only one of them could legitimately be called a server. Still, I'd be curious to know how CNET came up with their number.

But the second, more obvious problem is in talking about server SALES. Obviously the majority of Linux servers in place did not result from sales; Linux is free. Even if a company wants to go the official rout and buy from Red Hat, they don't need one CD for each server; they need one CD for all servers. And most Linuxes come from a commercial sale anyway.

So its nice to be mentioned, but I think this story is badly skewed. Don't flame CNET; they're just reporting figures from IDC. I wouldn't flame IDC either; we do the community no good by screaming at everyone who doesn't mention Linux the way we want them to. But it would be nice to get some clarification from IDC on where they get their Linux numbers from.