Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 21:26:49
Subject: NTools E-NewsFlash: Hot New Security Tool & Linux Survey Results

Wow!
That was _some_kind of response! We got over 15,000 people answering
the survey. It's a hot topic for sure, and an interesting story.


2) SURVEY RESULTS: LINUX IS HERE TO STAY.

And now, the answers to the survey questions! Before anything else,
thanks for your many thousands of survey answers. This is a hot
topic for sure!!

First though, some background data. This survey was meant to
get an idea how things are looked at BY the NT community, FOR
the NT community. Well, that was somewhat naive I have to admit
<grin>. The questions were created while looking at discussions
between NT system administrators and were definitely written
from that viewpoint. Some claim that they were biased. There may
be some truth in that if you look at it from the Linux POV.

Sunbelt does not claim any kind of scientific validity. This
survey is a snapshot and not a random sample at all. It is not
objective but that was not the idea in the first place.

BUT, I guess if you step into a war you should expect some bullets
flying around, and I did get some flak from people. Most of these
people are both running NT and Linux and know them well. Personally
I know NT but have not much experience with Linux. We have a few
'closet' Linux users in Sunbelt though, both in sales and Tech <g>.

Anyway, what happened is that we sent the invitation to do the
survey, and very quickly got thousands of responses back. We
followed in real-time what the results were, every 500 responses
or so. Extremely surprising numbers to start with. But even more
strange after the first few hours. Numbers started suddenly to
change and become slanted toward more Linux than before. Very odd
from a statistical perspective I remember from my stats course
in college.

Now, it so happens that the software we use to do the survey
queries the browser that was used to fill out the survey. So
we know what O/S it is running on, and the IP address it comes
from. The Linux user community had gotten word about the survey
and was getting into gear to show that Linux had support.

So anyway, we took the first 2000 survey results and did our
analysis on those. These were from predominantly NT users with
some people answering from a Linux machine. That will give some
idea about the current state of Linux use and the results are
revealing.


HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SURVEY:

We have a URL with all the raw data in HTML format at the end...

1) You spend about 40% of your time doing System Administration

2) 68% of you has 1 to 10 NT Servers
   13% runs 11-20 servers
   8%  runs 21 to 50 servers

3) 59% has between 1-100 workstations hooked up
   14% has 100-250 WS
   9%  has 250-500

The questions about the Sunbelt website are more for our internal
use and not so interesting for you. The upshot is that over 80%
of you thought it was OK as it was. Thanks for the suggestions
though. We'll work on it!

4) 40% of you are using OUTLOOK, the rest is other email clients

5) 80% of you can receive HTML (rich text) email so we'll experiment
   with that a bit.

NOW FOR THE INTERESTING STUFF:

It is loud and clear. Linux is no fad, and it is here to stay.

6) 67% of respondees is already running Linux on one or more machines.
   20% is not
   12% is thinking about it.

7) What are you using Linux for?
   First was WebServer, then EmailServer, next Desktop, fourth File/print.
  
8) The 2 Biggest Benefits? STABILITY AND PERFORMANCE.
   (no particular drawbacks were significant.)

9) How many Linux servers are you planning to add?
   42% of the respondees planned 1-5 Linux servers
   9.5% planned to add 6 to 10 servers

10) How many NT servers are you planning to add?
    31% of the respondees planned to add 1-5 NT Servers
    7.6% planned to add 6-10 NT servers.

11) The biggest NT Management Headache at the moment was:

    1) A tie between SECURITY and PERFORMANCE
    2) Network Management
    3) User Management
    4) Backups
    5) Storage Management
    6) Other

You can check the raw data over here:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/0399_2000.htm

Some preliminary conclusions (& draw your own looking at the data)

Linux seems to be growing faster than NT at the moment. That confirms
some other market research I have seen last week. It sounds like you
look hard at what _use_ the server is going to have, and then take the
platform best suited for that. There seems to be no anti-Microsoft
sentiment involved here, mainly a technical decision.

(As an aside, many of you wrote me to tell me you use both platforms
for years already and are tired of the religious wars. OK, I will take
heed!  :-) 

Obviously Linux is more stable, requiring less reboots. NT needs work
in that area for sure. From this informal survey it is not clear what
marketshare Linux is eating into. It may be the existing Unix flavors
(like SCO) or NT, in reality it is probably some of both.

Another news item is that Red Hat Software Inc., a top supplier of
Linux on Tuesday said that four major computer makers had invested in
the company. Red Hat said COMPAQ, IBM CORP, NOVELL INC and ORACLE
CORP had made minority equity investments in the company, joining
earlier investors INTEL CORP and NETSCAPE.

You will hear no more anti-Linux noise from me any more. Sunbelt will
keep it's focus on NT Tools though, but let me know if you find a good
NT-Linux integration utiltity?