The Hindu Business Line : Counting on a Linux push

Linux may be the catalyst that boosts sales of blade servers in India. As vendors such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Dell grapple with new strategies to sell the sleek and expensive blade servers, the Linux operating system (OS) is the trump card they play to win over cost-conscious Indian IT buyers.

Blade servers, introduced late 2002, are uniquely shaped devices that are used to process commands and host applications. Blade servers were designed to consume lesser space in a data centre (a room to house all storage and servers of a firm). Blades are called so as they are shaped like slim boxes. They slip into a chassis that provides network connections and power supply to each of the blades. The chassis can hold several blades and simplifies cabling for enterprises. The blade is the sleeker cousin of the tower-shaped and rack-mounted servers. Though the latter two are cheaper, they also consume more space as they are bulky.

Fast growing market

While the footprint of the blade server market is very small in India, the market is growing rapidly. It grew more than thrice its size from FY 2004 to FY 2005 in terms of revenue and units, say industry sources. Of the total one lakh server units sold in the country, only 5,000 are blades, says Rajesh Dhar, Country Manager-Industry Standard Servers, Technology Solutions Group, HP India Sales. According to industry estimates, the current penetration of blade servers, according to addressable market, in India is at about 15-20 per cent.This inherent niche-ness of the blade server market is resulting in growing aggressive behaviour by sellers.

Preference for Linux is growing, especially in high-performance computing, digital content creation, animation and video segments, saysellers of blade servers. The trend is a gradual shift towards Linux. The share of Windows and Linux OSs on the blades is currently almost equal. Microsoft's OS is more popular for the traditional commercial uses (such as exchange and Web site hosting), while Linux is gaining in the segments that demand higher processing power, saysViswanath Ramaswamy, Country Manager, SystemX, IBM India. IBM India is selling blade servers to the retail, banking and insurance as well as high-performance computing segments.

Dell, the new entrant, also agrees that the Linux OS is helping sales.

"A significant chunk of blade servers we sell is Linux-based," says Rajan Anandan, Vice-President and General Manager, Dell India.

The L factor

Vendors selling the blade concept to IT buyers are now arm-wrestling their way to win over buyers in this high-value, low-volume market.

Hewlett-Packard, with 250 customers, is using the `L' factor to win over Sun Microsystem's Unix customers. "Red Hat and Novell have created a discipline in the server OS market. Consolidation on Linux is now being viewed as a credible option. Buyers of Sun's machines are potential customers for conversion," says Dhar.

HP is targeting the telecom and banking sectors for Linux-based blade servers. "We see a huge opportunity in Linux replacing Unix machines," says Pallab Talukdar, Director-Enterprise Marketing & Alliances, Technology Solutions Group, HP India Sales.

Sun, however, seems unperturbed by HP's threat. "We do not foresee any impact," says Krithiwas Neelakantan, National Business Development Manager, Sun Microsystems India. The company is confident that Solaris will be among the top two OSs being deployed on blade servers.

preethi@thehindu.co.in