VA Linux Systems disputes IDC server market findings

Linux hardware specialist VA Linux Systems claims IDC's latest survey of the Linux server market is wrong - at least as far as its own position in the chart goes. IDC's survey put Compaq at the head of the top five Linux server vendors, followed by IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and, perhaps surprisingly, Fujitsu Siemens. VA, along with other names well-known for their support of the open source OS, such as Penguin Computing, were relegated to IDC's 'others' category. But according to a VA spokesperson, "VA Linux would have placed fifth in IDC's ranking, but IDC didn't break us out separately because they'd categorized us under 'Other'." The IDC research covers the last three months of 1999. VA's own numbers, for November 1999 to January 2000, its second fiscal quarter, show some 3645 servers were sold. That's clearly more than Fujitsu Siemens' 2286 server shipments, so we should be number five, reckons VA. Possibly, but don't forget that the two sets of figures are out of sync by a month, and VA's January 2000 sales may be significantly higher than they were in October 1999, the first month IDC's survey considers. VA says that even allowing for that, it should still be in there ahead of Fujitsu Siemens. Certainly, if you use VA's figure to calculate a monthly average and run that over two months - essentially ignoring January 2000's sales and assuming it didn't sell anything in October 1999 - it still sold more kit than Fujitsu Siemens. So what has IDC to say about all this? VA told us that the researcher has agreed to clarify its findings, but when we checked nothing had yet appeared on the company's Web site. And IDC has yet to make an official response to our request for clarification. When we get it, we'll let you know. ® Related Story Linux server market dominated by IT giants