Server manufacturer Stratus Technologies is banking on Windows becoming the dominant server operating system of choice, claiming that companies should chose the propriety software for its stability.

Stephen Kiely, the chairman of Stratus Technologies told ZDNet Australia   it is "an open book" whether Linux or Windows will eventually dominate the server market, but Stratus has thrown its lot in with Microsoft.

"It's better. Contrary to public opinion it's more stable," said Kiely. While this comment would raise a howl of protest from open source proponents pointing at the history of the two operating systems, Kiely stands his ground. "Things always look different through the rear vision mirror than out the windscreen."

Kiely agrees with the description of NT4 as "terrible", but claims the next generation of Windows is getting better every month. Kiely said Stratus helps Microsoft test Windows 2000, and claims over 99.999 percent uptime, or less than five minutes of downtime per year.

IBM, possibly the largest proponent of open source systems, disagrees that Windows 2000 is more stable than Linux but won't go as far as to say that Linux is more stable than Windows. "A well-run managed system is more stable than a non-well-run managed system," Peter Hedges, X-series product specialist for IBM Asia Pacific told ZDNet Australia.

"I don't think you can point to one system and say it's worse than the other," said Hedges.

Stratus has backed up its position with a US$100,000 payment if a business experiences any unplanned downtime, but limits this to its top of the line ftServer 6500 series running Windows 2000 Advanced Server covered by Stratus Business Critical ftService.

However, Stratus aren't completely certain Microsoft will destroy Linux, and are planning a Linux offering in about a year. Two channel partners already ship Linux with Stratus hardware. The main edge Linux has over Windows is its similarity to Unix, according to Kiely.

"One thing where Linux is better is Microsoft doesn't have the Unix culture," he said. "[The Unix culture] is going to be much more comfortable on Linux, and the applications will port more easily to Linux than to Windows." However, he added Linux is "based on 70's Unix", and doesn't fit well on modern computers.

Hedges agrees a Unix background is a contributing factor in the decision of many firms to choose Linux over Windows. "If you've got a customer that wants to decommission an old Sun server, it may be that their preference leans towards Linux," he said. However, he disagrees that this is the only advantage Linux has.

"We can run Linux on a huge variety of platforms and architectures," said Hedges.

Stratus Technologies is a small player in the server market, with just 0.39 percent of the value share for the first three quarters of 2002, according to IDC. During the first three quarters of 2001 Stratus owned 0.03 percent of the market value, so has grown by 1187.8 percent.

Stratus hopes to increase market share due to a recent change in hardware strategy. For 20 years the company had produced servers containing 90 percent of components proprietary to Stratus. Around 18 months ago, they switched to 90 percent Intel technology and reduced the prices of servers to around a tenth of their previous cost.

"The Intel cost advantages get sharper every year," said Kiely. "With the capabilities they offer why would you want to go back to legacy?"

In absolute terms, Kiely said Stratus has sold 1,200 servers in the year to January, and on a dollar basis sold US$45 million in the previous five quarters.

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