| Linux and open source arrive in SMB IT |
May 15, 2007
Many Linux or open-source business stories focus on how they can work for you. We're past that stage now. Today, according to a CIO Insight study, mid-sized businesses are already built on Linux and open-source software.
The CIO Insight study of 90 companies with revenues below $500 million found that 90 percent will use Linux by the end of 2007. It's more than just Linux, though. Apache, Firefox, and other open-source Web and application tools, database systems, and development tools have also become mainstays of the mid-sized business' IT department.
Why? The biggest reason is that open-source's low costs are proving irresistible. The survey also showed that the fear that some IP (intellectual property) legal disaster might lie in wait has largely disappeared. Could this have something to do with Microsoft's recent patent threats? It just might.
In the meantime, though, only 7 percent of businesses are not using Linux at all, and only 1 percent are planning on reducing their dependence on Linux. As for the rest, 65 percent plan on increasing their Linux use, while 23 percent are happy with their current level of Linux use.
Of the 88 percent of all mid-sized companies that are using Linux, most, 67 percent, use it as a server operating system.
Interestingly, 23 percent use it as a desktop operating system. Although CIO Insight doesn't point it out, that means slightly more than 20 percent of SMBs are already using a Linux desktop. It's not just Linux enthuasiasts. Are you listening, Dell? HP?
The survey also found that open-source adoption is not just limited to the household names of free software: Linux, Apache, and Firefox. Many SMBs (small to medium sized businesses) have deployed other kinds of open source software, including database systems such as MySQL; middleware such as Tomcat; and programming languages, like Perl, Python and Ruby on Rails, are also used by more than half of SMBs.
Security software, such as Snort; application servers like JBoss; and email clients -- for example, Thunderbird -- are also coming on strong. Curiously, open-source office suites -- OpenOffice being the premier example -- are lagging a bit: only 36 percent of SMBs currently are using a free software office program, while 7 percent plan do so in the coming year.
But, perhaps the survey's most important result of all is that it shows that "nearly half of SMBs have adopted a full-fledged open source architecture. Open source is not just a trend; it's a permanent presence."
Welcome to the 21st century. Linux and open-source software in business isn't coming soon. It's arrived.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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