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Linux To Ring Up $35B By 2008

Posted by michael on from the money-in-the-bank dept.

al@opensourcebrowser.com pastes "For a theoretically free operating system, Linux is -- and will continue to be -- a cash cow, a research firm said Wednesday as it predicted the OS will bring in more than $35 billion in revenues by 2008. Framingham, Mass.-based IDC said that overall revenue for servers, desktops, and packaged software running on Linux will reach $35.7 billion in the next four years."

4 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Errrr, Dupe by MrWim · · Score: 4, Informative

    See here

  2. Re:Karma points to.. by goon+america · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the article:
    The numbers are higher than earlier estimates by most analysts, in part, said IDC, because it changed it methodology to account for not just Linux on new hardware, but also Linux that's redeployed on existing hardware, and even cases when the open-source OS is used as a guest operating system, such as in a server partitioned with virtualization software to run multiple OSes.

    So, not only are they counting the hardware that linux is running on as being "spent on linux," they're also counting existing hardware on which linux will be installed as being "spent" on linux as well.
  3. And yet... by elid · · Score: 3, Informative
    ...Microsoft generates $10.6 billion in annual revenue from Office alone.

    (source)

  4. Re:Actual revenue for 2004 is $15 billion by gregorio · · Score: 3, Informative
    More interesting is the actual value for 2004 - $15 billion. That's a nice number, Note that in comparison, Microsoft's 2004 revenue is about $36 billion. Apple is around $10 billion.
    The 15 billion figure is the *total* direct and indirect profits *related* to Linux. Including Hardware.