Linux has grown from about four percent of all Dell servers sold in the first quarter of 1999 to almost ten percent of all servers sold in the first quarter of this year. We believe Dell and Linux are a powerful combination as more organizations large and small look to build their own Internet infrastructures. The open-source collaborative software development model is built to succeed in the Internet infrastructure space, and it makes more economic sense than a proprietary method offered by most of our competitors. Often available free and online but companies like Red Hat, Linuxcare, and others are now active in supplying Linux-specific services. Our Linux customers rate reliability very high and we know it's true from our personal experiences.
Customers can have access to the source code and there is no limit on how they use it.
There is little incentive for server companies with proprietary operating systems to support Linux. Their foundations and economic models have been built on offering a closed solution. Linux can be the disruptive technology that will be the catalyst to standards-based Internet computing. We use Linux internally in our manufacturing operations to efficiently manage the installation of customers' system images. The combination of deploying Linux and Dell PowerVault storage worldwide is saving us several millions of dollars per factory per year.