There is really no debate whether Dell is a successful computer company. It has gained market share, often at the expense of the industry’s biggest players. As Dell continues to grow, it is pushing more and more into the large enterprise market. But as the stakes rise, so too does the competition. For those companies which view running mission-critical applications on Windows with trepidation, Dell offers a Linux solution. Ironically, the company has been lent a helping hand by the competition.
“Linux is kind of new but it is gaining more acceptance and I think what has happened is that smaller-end vendors like Dell (in terms of target market) are indirectly getting a boost from the bigger players because Sun and HP and IBM have all in the past six months to a year come out with a strong Linux strategy,” said Greg Ambrose, server research analyst with IDC Canada Ltd. in Toronto. But Linux is not yet at the stage where it is trusted to run mission-critical applications at large companies like banks or insurance companies, Ambrose explained. “But it could come to that.”