Windows to Linux defections to outpace Unix shifts in 2011
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Linux server deployments are expected to take slightly more business from Microsoft than Unix in the next year, according to latest data.
A Linux Foundation poll of major public and private sector organizations using Linux has found that 76.4 per cent plan to add more Linux servers during the next year, with just 41.2 per cent planning to add more Windows servers to their IT infrastructure's mix.
Forty-three per cent said they will decrease or maintain the existing number of Windows servers they're running.
Linux will take slightly more business from Windows than from Unix — the traditional target: 36.6 per cent are moving from Windows, compared to 31.4 per cent migrating from Unix to Linux, the Linux Foundation said.
Two-thirds of Linux deployments are going into greenfield sites, but a very low number are being used to build out cloudy data centers. Just 26 per cent of survey respondents will move their applications or services to the cloud during the next 12 months.
Respondents said that Linux is becoming more strategic to those running their organizations, with technical superiority the biggest reason given for moving to Linux, by 67 per cent. Other factors driving Linux are decent security — 64 per cent — and low total cost of ownership, 65.4 per cent.
The recession, often cited as one door-opener for Linux and open source use, has had no impact on the decision to use Linux for 58.6 per cent of respondents.
Hurdles to adoption are relatively low: the biggest obstacle is lack of drivers, for 39.4 per cent. Just over 38 per cent cited either interoperability with other platforms and applications, or the need for skilled support people as problems.
The Linux Foundation surveyed 1,948 Linux users, with 387 being in organizations of $500m or more than 500 users. ®
COMMENTS
We're talking servers, not desktops FFS
When it comes to servers, the only reason I even bother to leave a GUI on the damned thing is to keep my DBA happy (so he can run his Oracle bits). Otherwise, all you see at my server consoles is a friggin' bash prompt.
KDE or Gnome... for frig sakes. Are you an MCSE or something?
Same here
In my previous contract, a new young IT manager decided everything had to move from SUSE to Windows (it is what he knows). The email migration alone swallowed an entire year's IT budget and two years later, they are still fiddling with webservers, mysql databases, etc. The new IT manager has now been moved sideways and I guess everyone is trying to figure out how not to look stupid when the directors ask them what they are doing and where all the money went.
What a waste of public money!
And here we have the problem
You get this time and time again from Reg commentards....
This is about servers, not desktops. With the level of confusion between the 2 expressed here ("Linux will never take over from Windows - it can't [play my fave game] etc") I truly wonder about who The Reg's audience are.
I always thought this site was read by mainly people in the tech industries but I'm coming to the conclusion that most commentards are arm-chair Sysadmins without a clue about how computers are used in real businesses.
And for the record, my company (one of the largest banks in the world) is going exactly this way too. Of course I don't expect Windows to be gone in 18 months... but there is a very definite trend.
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