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.

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. 

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.

Red Hat and Novell have created a discipline in the server OS market. Consolidation on Linux is now being viewed as a credible option. -The Hindu

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