Dramatic boost in open source adoption

14 April 2009 JJ Robinson

Open source has surged in popularity driven by the economic downturn, finds IDC

The economic downturn is driving dramatic adoption of Linux, according to a survey of 330 organisations by research firm IDC.

Over half (53%) of organisations are planning to increase their use of Linux on servers as a direct approach to driving down costs in the downturn, while 48% intend to increase the number of Linux clients.

IDC predicts that the rising popularity for Linux-powered net-books is a particularly potent factor impacting the amount of client-side Linux usage, while on the server side, virtualisation is proving a major driver with almost half of respondents saying virtualisation is increasing their adoption of Linux.

Al Gillen at IDC noted that “economic downturns have the tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost-competitive. Linux is in a competitive position to emerge from this downturn as a stronger solution.”

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