Practical Technology

Austin, Texas–Once upon a time, you found Linux as a server in two places in the enterprise: on the edge, as a Web server, and in the branch office, as a file and print server. That was then. This is now.

In a speech at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit at the University of Texas Super Computing Center here, IDC Vice President of Research Al Gillen said that Linux is now growing quickly as the heart of mission-critical enterprise application servers. How quickly? Try the Linux server business will grow to $49 billion in 2011.

In his speech, Gillen said, “While these basic workload deployments continue to grow in volume, additional workloads, including database, ERP, decision support and general business processing, are steadily advancing their share of total Linux deployments.” What this means for Linux is that it quickly is becoming a mission-critical part of business.

In terms of dollars and cents, IDC expects to see Linux software spending growing from 2006 to 2011 at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 35.7 percent. The overall spending on Linux, including software, hardware, and services, is increasing over the same period at a CAGR of 24.1 percent. So if this spending continues at the rate IDC expects, the total spending on Linux will grow from 2007’s $21 billion in 2007 to $49 billion by 2011.

Now, if only the economy were growing at a rate even half of that, there would be no talk of a recession.

At this growth rate, Gillen said Linux’s share of the total server market “is expected to grow to more than 9 percent by 2011, or $31 billion in Linux-related software revenue in a total market that will grow to $330 billion.” As in the past, much of that growth is expected to come at the expense of Unix.

Linux’s growth is not uniform across different businesses. Gillen noted that “users in verticals such as government, financial services and general services are more likely to move to Linux as a replacement for existing Unix servers.”

Looking ahead, “Windows continues to present a significant long-term challenge for Linux,” said Gillen. At the same time, though, “Microsoft has shifted its approach to both Linux and other open-source technology and today is working both competitively and cooperatively with Linux solutions at a technology and development level. However, the company still takes a highly competitive marketing and sales approach to Linux.”

Another development IDC sees coming in the next few years that may boost Linux’s enterprise server growth even higher is what Gillen calls “software appliances.” These are turnkey software stacks “that incorporate operating system functionality along with middleware and other infrastructure software components, and potentially with application software as well.” If this happens, this will give vendors with a strong software stack–such as a Novell, Red Hat or Sun–a chance for “higher-volume deployments of Linux, even though it will reduce revenue opportunities for discrete products.”

The bottom line: Linux is continuing to become the life’s blood of many businesses. Or, as in the case of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, an early Linux adopter, it already is. A representative of the Exchange at the Summit said, “We’re already doing a trillion dollars of trades on the exchange.” What part of mission-critical ready do you not understand? ”

A version of this story was first published on Linux-Watch.

Austin, Texas—How do you herd cats? Well, as the famous EDS commercial shows, it isn’t easy. In a sense, that’s what the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit pro-Linux organization, will be doing this week at the invitation-only LF Collaboration Summit at the University of Texas Super Computing Center here.

Linux, as anyone who follows it knows, is the result of the efforts of hundreds of developers, and it serves the needs of at least as many companies and–thanks to its role in leading Web sites such as Google and its popularity with Web-hosting companies–hundreds of millions of users.

So, while no one “runs” Linux in the same way that Microsoft runs Windows, the Linux Foundation, and its related projects such as the Linux Standard Base, does the best it can to herd the Linux cats.

Or, to be more precise, the LF brings together the top cats from both the corporate world and the open-source community. At this week’s meeting, engineers and developers, and CEOs and CIOs will join together to talk about Linux’s recent path and its future for the coming year and beyond.

While the technology of the Linux kernel and Linux printing, for example, will be star subjects of the meeting, the attendees will also be discussing the economics of Linux. Make no mistake, this is no gathering of Linux fan boys. This is a gathering of chip vendors, such as AMD and Intel; PC OEMs, such as Asus, Dell, Everex and Hewlett-Packard; and Linux companies, from the biggest–Red Hat and Novell–to some of the smallest.

Among the subjects the attendees will be addressing are how well PC vendors are doing with their preinstalled Linux offerings; how MySQL–in a speech given by MySQL CEO Marten Mikos–will work with Linux now that the popular open-source DMBS company has been acquired by Sun; and how Google, the LiMo Foundation and OpenMoko, among others, will be bringing out Linux phones.

In addition, IDC Vice President of Research Al Gillen will be presenting a Linux Foundation-sponsored white paper: “The Role of Linux Servers in Commercial Workloads.” The gist of the paper is that Linux servers are transforming from simply being edge (Web servers and services) and infrastructure (file and print sharing) servers to “mainstream business-oriented workloads.” The bottom line is that IDC sees Linux server spending increasing from 2007’s $21 billion to almost $50 billion by 2011.

Also, top executives from Red Hat, IBM, Intel, Motorola, Oracle, and Via Technology, among others, will be speaking at the conference. The more important part of the gathering won’t be the speeches and panel discussions; it will be the gathering of open-source developers, desktop and server vendors, ISVs, corporate Linux consumers, and end users to work out where the Linux cat herd will be going next. It should be an interesting week.

A version of this story first appeared in Linux-Watch.