Linux Adoption in the Enterprise

According to a new survey from the Linux Foundation, adoption of enterprise Linux is growing at the expense of Windows.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has published "Linux Adoption Trends: A Survey of Enterprise End Users," which shares new data that shows Linux is poised to take significant market share from Unix and Windows.

The Linux Foundation survey shows that nearly 80 percent of companies surveyed say they are adding more Linux relative to other operating systems in the next five years. Overall, the survey also indicates that Linux is becoming more mission critical in the enterprise and more strategic to the CIO.

The data in the report reflects the results of an invitation-only survey of the Linux Foundation’s Enterprise End User Council as well as other companies and government organizations. The survey was conducted by The Linux Foundation in partnership with Yeoman Technology Group during August and September 2010 and received responses from more than 1900 individuals.

Key findings from the report include that:

• 58.4 percent of respondents say their CIOs see Linux as more strategic to the organization now than it was three years ago;
• 79.4 percent of companies are adding more Linux relative to other operating systems in the next five years; more people are reporting that their Linux deployments are migrations from Windows than any other platform, including Unix migrations;
• 66 percent of users surveyed say that their Linux deployments are brand new "greenfield" deployments;
• among the early adopters who are operating in cloud environments, 70.3 percent use Linux as their primary platform, while only 18.3 percent use Windows;
• 60.2 percent of respondents said they will use Linux for more mission-critical workloads over the next 12 months.

For more, read the eWeek article Survey: Linux Adoption Continues to Grow at the Expense of Windows.