Study Shows Majority Use Linux In-House

Despite the fact that only a third of leading technology companies have adopted Linux as a corporate standard, a new study shows that nearly 60 percent are already using it in-house.

Fifty-nine percent of the 8,000 senior managers at companies with more than 1,000 employees reported that they have Linux running in their IT departments. Stability (with 65 percent) was rated as the top reason to use Linux, according to the report released by the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL), in conjunction with the SDTimes. Stability was followed by total cost of ownership (63 percent); deployment cost (61 percent); performance (58 percent), and security (50 percent).

”We found it particularly interesting that these managers included stability and security among the top five reasons for bringing Linux into their corporate networks,” says Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL. ”These are issues where some proprietary operating systems have suffered from well-publicized shortcomings.”

The survey also shows that 64 percent of IT managers are using Linux for Web servers. Fifty-one percent use it for application servers. Database servers came in third with 46 percent; file servers with 44 percent, custom application development with 43 percent.

The availability of technical support (35 percent) comes in as the top obstacle to using Linux, according to the report. Application availability came in second with 27 percent; the quality of technical support came in third with 23 percent; the availability of training came in fourth with 22 percent, and ease of installation came in on the fifth spot with 21 percent.