IDC's first ever forecast about Linux

NakNomik writes "IDC says "Other Operating Environments Will Have Trouble Keeping up with Linux's Growth" in its first ever forecast release about Linux. Read the release document over here. " Well, it's nice to see more people paying attention. And IDC gets the attention of the PHBs-for better or for worse.

Comments

This is more useful than you think.

[gavinhall]

Posted by Mike@ABC:

Sure, /. readers know that Linux is on the rise. That's why this seems like such a non-event. But IDG doesn't write these reports for you folks, nice as you are. They're writing them for IT managers, CIOs, and businessmen, some of whom might not be all that familiar with Linux. This report, and those pretty nifty numbers, will make the suits sit up, take notice, and think about adding Linux into their network mix.

In other words, this is good stuff. This puts Linux on par with Solaris, Windows NT, etc., not only in performance (where it already is), but also in the minds of people who may have had doubts before.

Forecast is Just for Comercially Shipped Linux

[Tim Macinta]

While it's nice to see that they're predicting good growth for Linux, I think their numbers are skewed as a result. The fact that you can download Linux for free isn't going to effect the numbers much because most people will still prefer to have their software on a CD. I think what will effect the numbers far more is that when a commercial distribution is purchased it can easily and legally be used on an unlimitted numer of computers, so companies that buy Linux are going to buy one distribution per company (or division if they're big) rather than one distribution per processor. So I would expect Linux's impact on the OS market to be seen more in the shrinking market share of other OSes rather than in its own ballooning market share since the market is inherently smaller when you're not restricted to a per processor license. I'm curious as to whether their report takes this into account (although, I'm not curious enough to shell out the 1.5k for the report).

They're missing a lot

[Jerky McNaughty]

They're only counting "commercial" units of Linux shipped. This probably doesn't include places like Cheapbytes which FTP Linux distributions and sell them themselves. And of course, this doesn't include people who FTP it for themselves.

I, for one, remember the days when FTP was the only way you could get Linux, and it's stuck with me. Out of the 20-30 machines I've put Linux on, I've never bought a commercial boxed set, so I guess those machines aren't counted.

I'm not saying that they _should_ be counting the FTP/Cheapbytes/etc. installations of Linux (how would they?), but keep it in mind. Growth will be more than they think.

Nobody believes the local guy.

[bstadil]

Good post. I used to work for fortune 50 company here in Dallas. Data like this was used all the time for product development decisions even though we all (I mean ALL incl the people making the decisions) new they pulled the forecast out of their behind. It somehow made us all feel better using someones elses BS, and it had a fair amount of CYA attached to it. I agree that this kind of info is Very important.

Antialiasing? [offtopic]

[jerodd]

Now if I could only get antialiasing on Linux.. :O

I've got it working in a beta of XFree86 4.0. No, I can't give it to you. It's got some real problems, such as dog-slow performance, and many Xapplications have real trouble with true fractional spacing, which is one of the main reasons to use antialiasing. In other words, Netscape doesn't work. Neither do GTK+ based apps.

Did I mention it's slow? EVERYTHING is rendered as an image, so your hardware's font acceleration can't be used. It probably won't be ready in time for the XFree86 4.0 release, but when XF86 4.0 comes out, look for it in the contrib/ section.

IDC?

[philburt]

Being a market analyst for a technology company, I can vouch for the importance of IDC (and other research firms). They are relied on by vendors and customers alike to understand:

1. market trends and directions
2. vendor market share
3. significance of news events

The firms get information from many sources including end-user surveys, company briefings, news reports, etc.. As with any source of information, it is important to get to know the people producing the information, compare the information with info from other sources, and season it with your own experience.

1.5K is pretty standard for a marketing report

[slew]

The target market for people who sell marketing reports is small (probably 1 per company).
For medium sized companies, paying $1.5K to a company is a lot better than hiring a marketing
guy/gal for $250K and spending another $250K gathering statistics from competitors that won't
give you the time of day and hoping you can believe the report.

All the info in these marketing reports eventually spill out to the public, but by investing your
$1.5K, you get the report before it spills out (which might be worth $1.5K to you... or not).

Marketing reports from companties like IDC and DataQuest, although are not considered accurate,
usually include both "top-down" reports (what your competitors expect) and "bottom-up" reports
(what your customers expect). As we know, expectation often creates reality. A small or
medium sized company has no hope of producing such a report.

In a way marketing reports are just like /. They tell the people who buy their story what's
important. After a while, by definition what they say is important actually is important (think
about it)... If you (and enough people like you) invest enough time reading it, it in a sense
creates a reality.