Enterprise Linux Adoption Continues to Increase

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The Linux Foundation has released the results of a new survey of IT staffers at enterprises with more than 500 employees and more than $500 million in annual revenue. It found that large enterprises are increasing their investment in Linux for the third year in a row and that Linux is particularly important to companies that are adopting cloud computing or implementing big data projects.

PCWorld’s Katherine Noyesreported, “The past two years have already seen significant jumps in corporate Linux usage, but now it looks like that trend is continuing into a third year. To wit: While overall server revenue grew at just 3.1 percent and Windows server revenue increased just 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 year-over-year, Linux experienced 12.7 percent year-over-year growth for the same period. Unix, meanwhile, was down 24.1 percent. That’s according to the Linux Foundation, which on Wednesday released its 2013 Enterprise End User Report, focusing on Linux adoption.”

ServerWatch’s Sean Michael Kerner added, “Overall, the report also found an increasing number of users moving to Linux from Windows. In 2010, the same report found that 31 percent of respondents were migrating to Linux from Windows. In 2013 that number has increased to nearly 40 percent. In terms of outlook, 80 percent of respondents intend to acquire more Linux servers in the next five years. In contrast, only 20 percent said they intend to increase their Windows server purchases.”

ZDNet quoted the Linux Foundation’s report, which said, “A dramatic increase in the use of Linux for mission-critical workloads has grown consistently year over year to reach 73 percent in 2013. Reliance on Linux for cloud and big data is a strong contributing factor.”

Darryl K. Taft from eWeek noted, “According to the report, enterprise organizations identify Linux as the dominant platform for cloud computing with nearly 76 percent using Linux servers for cloud and 74 percent planning to maintain or increase Linux use for future cloud initiatives. In the area of new applications, services and greenfield deployments, more than 75 percent of organizations report deploying Linux in the last two years.”