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Linux To Take Over Microsoft In Enterprises
shougyin writes "For years, Linux has enjoyed much of its success as a replacement for Unix. Companies turned to Linux to replace Unix servers, or for new deployments within a Unix-heavy environment. Linux is still king there, but it's starting to encroach on Microsoft as well. Big companies are planning overwhelmingly (76.4%) to add more Linux servers in the next year, and less than half (41.2%) of the companies are planning to add Windows servers in the next year. Even more interesting, nearly half (43.6%) are actively planning to decrease use of Windows servers in the next year."
This survey is not statistically representative by all means. It is done amidst users that already use Linux and done by a Linux advocacy. I am no MSFT fan. I have not had a Windows machine in my house since 1997 (and even that was Win 3.x running under OS2 Warp). However, the reality is not as rosy as this survey would like us to see.
First of all, the majority of Windows users are SMEs and they are Windows _ONLY_. They _WILL_ buy more of the same and that is a definite. A lot of the rest is desktop estate and its essential dependencies - Exchange and their friends. 95% of these will be buying more of the same. There are very few successful desktop migrations to account for anything more than that. Even that will be an underestimate. 99% buying more of the same is more likely.
That leaves "enterprise" backend use which is pretty much what this survey is about. There is a lively migration racket going on there nowdays as most of this runs in the form of Java and friends on top of middleware stacks. Every 1-2 years the latest and greatest backend idea comes along with its migration programme. As a result servers and stacks get chucked out and replaced by others.
There Linux is gaining and the numbers are about right. However that is a very small portion of the market and misrepresenting it for the whole market is to the very best disingenuous. Additionally, it also completely ignores the "Elephant In The Corner of The Room". The merger of Sun and Oracle has created a vertical stack which will once again effectively compete for their place under the sun (pun intended) in the server room. Any stats regarding enterprise migration that assign (Sn)Oracle a negative year on year growth are frankly wishful thinking.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I thought it was very funny to see 41% called "less than half", and 44% called "almost half! :D
Technically correct and true, yes, but I smell bias...
This is directly from the report. "This survey was conducted with members of The Linux Foundation’s End User Council, as well as other end users identified by The Linux Foundation and Yeoman Technologies. This report is being published at The Linux Foundation End User Summit, where many respondents will be in attendance. These companies include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Bristol- Myers Squibb, NTT, Deutsche Bank, Dreamworks, ADP, McKinsey and Company, Bank of New York, Barclays Capital, AIG, the US Department of Defense, MetLife, CME Group, NASDAQ QMX, the New York Stock Exchange, Goodrich, and many more."