HP makes a bid for the open source crown

Rethink IT, July, 2004

Hewlett-Packard is determined to snatch IBM's crown as most aggressive server maker about open source. The latest in a string of announcements, made last month, made HP the first OEM to certify an open source stack, packaging the JBoss applications server and MySQL database on its servers.

"We'll be the first and only vendor to offer an integrated, certified, supported solution on an operating system stack. HP is the only solutions vendor that can do it, because the other vendor [IBM] has a vested interest in selling its own software," HP told US reporters.

HP has made a series of Linux-related announcements in the past few months, most recently unveiling its Linux Reference Architectures. MySQL is part of this architecture, in both its commercial and open source forms.

The company has also offered customers indemnification from lawsuits related to SCO'S ongoing litigation against Linux users, and has deepened its relationship with Novell, which is reinventing itself around the open source operating system. The partners are working together to offer Linux-based systems from data center to laptop.

Both HP and MySQL claim they are seeing increasing interest from enterprises in comprehensive open source strategies that are not just about Linux, but embrace the "the full LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), and looking to acquire these from a big name with the confidence of full support and certification programs.

Announcements like this are accelerating the progress of Linux to become a 'grown-up' operating system on enterprise class servers, with the reassurance for nervous users of the full weight of the vendors' testing, support and integration programs, plus the bonus of safety from pay-outs to SCO.

HP has not always been such a leading light in the open source world. In early 2002, the likes of Oracle and IBM were at the forefront, working with the Linux big names like Red Hat and SuSE to make open source, for the first time, a viable alternative to Microsoft and Unix in the enterprise. HP had been very quiet, but suddenly CEO Carly Fiorina was full of Linux, claiming the merger of Compaq and HP would progress the operating system's cause--though she was careful to assert that she did not see Linux as in conflict with Microsoft, a company with which HP has had very close alliances in recent years.

The breakthrough came in June 2002 when HP followed through on Fiorina's fine words with its first collaboration with Red Hat. The two combined engineering resources to certify and deliver Red Hat Linux Advanced Server on the Oracle9i Real Application Clusters environment running on the HP ProLiant DL580 servers. HP was the first to deliver such a certified configuration, its first step to offering integrated Linux-based solutions rather than spot products.

Then, in 2003, HP made Linux revenue of over $2.5bn, a growth of 40% year-on-year. "2003 was a banner year for Linux at HP--our Linux services and solutions business grew at 40%, we became the first major Linux vendor to initiate a Linux Indemnity program for customers, we are working with many new enterprise customers and we made over $2.5bn in revenue for the year," said Martin Fink, vice president of Linux.

According to IDC, HP held the number one position in the Linux server market in 2003 with about 30% of Linux server factory revenue worldwide.

2003 also brought $75m in revenue from a program designed to lure Sun customers to HP Linux. The program offers $25,000 worth of migration services, and HP claims it attracted 50 customers--new to HP--in the last quarter of 2003. Sun, though, retaliated, claiming to be attracting customers from HP, especially those using the Tru64 version of Unix, which HP has discontinued.

"Linux server revenues and unit shipments have been accelerating in recent quarters," said IDC's Jean Bozman. "The key drivers for this acceleration, we believe, are widespread acceptance of Linux servers for many web-centric applications, a growing use for file/print and other IT infrastructure workloads, and increasing use of Linux servers for high performance computing workloads, for custom applications and for packaged ISV applications. HP remains a key player in a highly competitive marketplace."

Key to HP's approach this year have been its new Linux Reference Architectures, including commercial Linux architectures based on Oracle Database/9iRAC and BEA WebLogic Server and an open source infrastructure architecture based on software from MySQL, JBoss, Apache and OpenLDAP.

The Linux reference architectures are being deployed on HP ProLiant servers, to be followed by deployment on HP Integrity servers. Such certified and pre-integrated platforms are designed to speed time to deployment and reduce business risk for customers, and HP has certainly gained a significant lead in integrating systems components and applications in this way.

These moves, particularly the joint initiatives with MySQL and JBoss, are a "milestone for open source standards-based middleware and platform technology," according to analysts at Gartner Group.