Lots of lolly in Linux

Dec 17, 2004: Despite the operating system's close association with freely available software, there is certtainly money to be made from Linux, according to the findings of a new global Linux market share and forecast study conducted by market research firm IDC.

The new study, which was commissioned by the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux in the enterprise, predicts the overall market revenue for desktops, servers, and packaged software running on Linux will exceed US$35 billion by 2008. IDC has this year's Linux revenues at around the US$15 billion mark.

The study presents a measurement of shipments and the installed base of servers and PCs running Linux that takes into consideration Linux shipped with new hardware deliveries, Linux running aboard redeployed systems, and instances where Linux is used as a guest operating system.

Predicted revenue growth for packaged applications and infrastructure software running on Linux is expected to exceed $14 billion in the next four years, growing at a 2003-2008 compound annual rate of more than 44 percent.

''This is the first authoritative and comprehensive snapshot of how people truly use Linux and it’s not surprising for us to see that the adoption is far ahead of even some of the most optimistic estimates,'' said Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL.

''When all manifestations of Linux operating systems are counted, Linux is clearly a mainstream solution,'' said Vernon Turner, group vice president and general manager of Enterprise Computing research at IDC. ''Today, IDC sees a shift where Linux server operating environment deployments are moving to favour the use of enterprise server hardware. This transition is being driven by the increasing robustness of Linux and the increasingly critical nature of the applications deployed on Linux.''

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