IDC: Linux spending set to boom by 21 percent in 2009
Most vendors are already preparing for a tough Christmas.
Those selling Linux-based solutions, however, can expect to spread plenty of holiday cheer, according to a new report from IDC, "The Opportunity for Linux in a New Economy." (PDF)
Even as Red Hat recently talked up its impressive quarterly results, it's important to recognize that not all of Linux's success can be seen in corporate financial results. Much of the benefits of Linux comes from unpaid deployments, which continue to account for a healthy margin of total deployments:
Of course, as noted, there remains plenty of revenue growth in Linux, as IDC notes, though most of it is still not coming at Microsoft's expense:
- Linux is set to outpace the larger market, with customer spending on Linux expected to grow year over year by 21 percent in 2009. The larger software market, meanwhile, will struggle to deliver 2 percent growth in 2009. And from 2008 to 2013, the Linux market is set to grow $12.3 billion to $35.5 billion, representing a 23.6 percent compound annual growth rate.
- Even so, it is important to note that the size of Linux versus, for example, Windows, is telling: the Microsoft software ecosystem was $149 billion in 2008. IDC rightly points out that "even with a sub-10 percent growth rate through 2013, (the Microsoft ecosystem) will add $56 billion in spending.
- Virtualization is expected to be a big driver of Linux. While cloud computing is also expected to drive Linux and open-source adoption, the real money is coming from increases in Linux adoption--from 13 percent to 18.6 percent--for more traditional workloads like ERP, database, etc. Most of this growth in traditional workloads is coming at Unix's expense.
- IDC finds that 53 percent of enterprises it has surveyed are planning to increase adoption of Linux on the server and 48 percent expect to increase adoption of Linux on the client (desktop, laptop, etc.) "as a direct result of the economic climate."
- Perhaps not surprisingly, while Microsoft has been attempting to make Windows an inviting platform for open-source vendors, IDC expects no movement from Microsoft to make its software available on Linux. This is war, and Microsoft for all its talk about interoperability, apparently sees interoperability as a one-way street on which other vendors interoperate with it, on its terms, to its advantage.
All of which bodes well for Linux, but suggests that longer term, Linux vendors are going to have to start stepping on Microsoft's toes to grow, as Linux growth is starting to slow. The way forward may be to complement Linux offerings with other open-source solutions:
The good news is that the more CIOs buy into Linux, the more they tend to invest in other open-source technology, as well. So Red Hat, Novell, and Canonical have ready-made buyers if they choose to extend beyond core Linux. (Red Hat, of course, also offers JBoss middleware, and Novell has a range of other products, but neither of them has taken the steps to build a full open-source ecosystem.)
It's a good time to be in Linux, as IDC's data suggest. But there's room to improve.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Thank you.
2001 - "Linux will end the Micro$oft strangle hold on desktops."
2004 - "Open Source poised to topple software giant."
2006 - "Linux will pwn MS"
2008 - "Linux dominance is just around the corner"
2010 - "Latest Linux distros could seal MS's fate"
2012 - "Linux market share below 2%, but it's future is stong."
Linux is not the wave of the future today anymore than is was 8 years ago. Despite the downturn in the economy, businesses will still find that windows is cheaper to run because the TCO is lower. There's a reason Windows/MS is king, and tho many people like to point to demonic influence and shifty business practices... it's king because it is a superior product. If linux were a superior product it would have made headway by now.
To it's credit, Linux made some good ground in servers for quite a while, because they made a terrific product for those applications, but they will never topple the desktop.
Your superior product argument doesn't hold true. Even as an ASP.NET developer I know, as well as every other software developer, that Internet Explorer is the worst web browser on the market. The fact that IE is the most popular doesn't make it the superior product.
Thanks to the Mono Project, I can now move all of my C# and ASP.NET software over to a Linux based environment. I'm also moving from Windows Mobile development to Android (a Linux based OS). Things aren't as they used to be and you're extremely naive if you don't see Microsoft losing serious market share over the next 10 years. Sure businesses will be slower to shift platforms, but the consumer market is going to shift far more rapidly and that eventually permeates into the business environment.
The TCO for Windows is much, much higher. There is nothing superior about MS software, it is third rate. Linux is easier to use, supports far more hardware, is more secure and stable. The only stumbling block is that the MS FUD machine is doing a good job.
The Linux desktop is years ahead of Windows, in fact Vista and 7 show how much copying from Linux(and OS X) MS does.
It is not popular. 99% of computer users don't understand their systems and just use what is in front of them.
People in the Open Source community need to get out of their wet dream, because its not going to happen. You need jack hammer it into your brain. Windows is here to stay, dominate and further proliferate. Whats wrong with it? And don't come with security bull! I realize whats the problem here. Its a one sided industry propaganda that's being promoted by a certain group of individuals, from Linus Torvald to Larry Ellison, Scott McNealy, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, even Steven Jobs himself and many powerful individuals in this industry who would just love to have that same market penetration as Microsoft where NOS, Client and Desktop Productivity is concerned.
Who wouldn't? But, brains have been poisoned to see a successful Company get torn down. Well its not gonna happen. IBM use to be in a similar situation, but has it died? No! Will it die? No! We need to get beyond this Linux is gonna own the desktop someday, IT IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN! Now please don't let me hear anything more about it. Please. Windows is perfect and it will continue to dominate. Office is perfect and it will continue to dominate.
I know you're just trolling, but I'll bite.
Not gonna debate you on the whole "Windows is perfect, Office is perfect". That sort of "objective" look at things sort of speaks for itself.
I would ask why you read Matt's blog - you know he's an unabashed open source advocate - and then say stuff like "please don't let me hear anything more about it"... hmmm... that's sort of like going to Church every Sunday and saying "Enough with this 'there is a God' stuff!" and then you keep going back every Sunday expecting the message to change...
Why are you wasting your time? In fact... why am I wasting mine?
Bye.
- Bill
Why is it the MS shills are also so ignorant about business and computer systems? Surely MS can afford to hire competent shills?
I'm reminded of the story about the island where the local religion promised that true believers would be immortal. When Westerners first came upon the island and were told about the religion, they pointed out that people on the island did in fact die. The reply, of course, was that they had obviously lost faith, otherwise they'd still be alive.
After Win2K Server (with its Active Directory), Windows Server market share went from 0 to 70% (2008). Windows stole market share from all Unix variants (yes, including Linux).
TCO is more than just license cost. Its the day-to-day operations. How do you manage 250,000 desktop clients from your Unix servers? No AD? No MOM?
Large organizations always want to find ways of saving IT cost. Ask their internal research, and you will find that they always come back to Windows as having the lowest TCO. How do you explain the dominance of the (costly) Windows Server platform if it is really inferior to the (free) Linux Server?
On a related market, the Netbooks, Linux initially owned that. The early netbooks all came with Linux of some form. This is a very price-sensitive market, and manufacturers thought that the cost of Windows will be a turn off to consumers. Well, today, more than 95% of Netbooks sold have Windows. The consumers have rejected the (again, free) Linux. Ask Walmart employees, and they will tell you of customers returning Linux netbooks, and exchanging for Windows netbooks.
Every time there is a new hype in Linux, I try it out, just to see if there is any truth to it. I do try hard to use the latest Linux Distros for my day to day computing. So far, all the hype and prophecies are just that - hype and prophecies. And the market numbers share my experience.
Just because you are ignorant about Linux, doesn't mean everyone has to.
BTW, Windows Server does not even have 40% market share. Even if you count the 20 accounts on godaddy running on a single license as 20 installs. A good chunk of MS market share is deception like that and parked domains.
Of course you can't see the difference because you aren't very bright.
Consider this: the desktops in Linux have all the graphical bells and whistles of Vista(in fact Vista copied them as they have been around in Linux a few years before Vista) but Vista takes 2-3 times the memory as the desktops in Linux.
That is the measure of MS competence.
What makes Microsoft so tough in the Enterprise, starts with Excel. I realize Excel is not a server application, but Windows management tools matter more when the clients are Windows. Word is completely replaceable. Powerpoint is also. All those in Accounting/Finance/Management have huge (training/development) investment in Excel. OpenOffice Calc does not handle as many rows, it is not as fast, nor is as stable. Though I would say it is fine for me personally. Unless you business has many custom apps, then they probably have a lot tied up in Excel.
However, if I were to stick with the University student leading indicator idea, I would predict more server operating system market share for Apple. Several students have commented that Apple has the best windowing environment for Linux/Unix.
Just food for thought.
Your missing your point. Yes it is use in organization (LAN). But have you seen some busiest website lately? are they powered by MS?. Matt is not just talking desktops / servers on your LAN but the entire aspect of IT infrastructure.. Yes you got point that AD has the advantage in a corporate LAN. Have you ask this question. What particular OS is the new order in WWW?
- by eudefender April 14, 2009 2:54 PM PDT
- What does market share mean to me as a customer? What does it change for the system I use and its ecosystem?
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