Author(s)
Laura Gee, Albert L. Nichols and Miroslav Skovajsa
Source
LECG White Paper, 2005
Summary
This paper describes the market for servers, a type of computer.
Policy Relevance
The market for servers shows how consumer preferences lead to the availability of more choices and more interoperability.
Main Points
- A "server" is a computer configured to provide services to other computers. Common types include network servers that let users share files and printers, and web servers, which host web pages.
- Servers provide a “platform” that both computer end users and software application developers use. Leading providers are IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, and Dell.
- Once, almost all servers were sold with operating system software. Fewer software applications were developed, because it rarely ran on more than one operating system and so customer numbers were limited.
- Now some firms sell just hardware; others sell hardware with open source software; still others sell hardware with the customer’s choice of Windows or Linux.
- Software applications developed for Windows run on Windows no matter who made the server.
- Servers are available in a wide range of prices and sizes and types, leading to pressure to make them easier to coordinate and connect with other products.
- Consumers can use different servers as substitutes, for example, many small servers can be used instead of a large mainframe.
