The share of servers with Linux continues to grow, while Windows and Unix shrink

In 2011, according to the latest Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker from IDC, global revenue from server production grew for Linux and decreased for Windows and Unix. It is especially interesting that IDC considers not just the number of installations, but the number of servers sold with the pre-installed OS.

This means that more and more clients are asking IBM, HP and Dell (the big three suppliers of hardware) to install Linux on the servers. IDC notes that “their demand for high-performance (HPC) and cloud computing had a positive impact on linux servers. Demand grew by 2.2% for the year and amounted to $ 2.6 billion in 4Q11. Linux servers now occupy 18.4% of the entire market. ”

What about competitors? “The demand for Windows servers decreased slightly in 4Q11, falling by 1.5% over the year. Quarterly revenues of $ 6.5 billion for windows account for 45.8% of the entire server market. ”As it has long been noted, the share of Unix continues to fall. “Income from Unix servers decreased by 10.7% over the year to $ 3.4 billion, which is 24.2% of the total market. At the same time, IBM is increasing its share in this niche by 2.5% compared to last year. ”
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As a result of the decline in the share of Unix, “Oracle, which ranks fourth in the list of largest suppliers, lost 11.5% in revenues (4Q11) compared to last year and occupied 5.2% of the market, while Fujitsu share (5th place) decreased by 10.5% and holds 3.4% of the entire market. ”While Oracle also has a Linux distribution, in this case, IDC only looked at hardware from Solaris, which is the main OS for Oracle and Fujitsu servers. (comment of the transl. to whom it is interesting, here's another: Financial analysts see increasing threats to the Oracle business )

As Jim Zemlin, head of the Linux Foundation, writes in his blog : “IDC believes that the success of Linux lies in unifying the platform. In other words, these are just servers for companies that need budget optimization and are switching to standard x86 servers. But there are other important factors for the success of Linux, relative to its competitors. ”

Jim writes about them: “Our latest survey of the world's largest companies using Linux showed that TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), technical excellence and security were the three main reasons for choosing Linux. These reasons indicate the maturity of Linux, and it was they who led this OS to success. Each data center (data center) uses Linux. Stock exchanges, supercomputers, and many transport systems use Linux much more frequently for workloads and critical tasks. ”

Additionally, the growth of Linux is largely due to the “accelerated transition of companies to cloud computing. This is already a long talk, but cloud computing is becoming a reality just now. There is still a lot of work in the field of Linux and cloud computing, but no one will deny that today Linux dominates the largest cloud companies such as Amazon and Google. “

In the Amazon EC2 cloud, for example, by recent estimates, there were just under half a million servers. And, what drives all these servers of the most famous public cloud? Red Hat Linux.

Jim Zemlin also notes that “the mass migration to cloud computing should speed up, in part, due to the increase in the amount of data. IDC this week made a forecast that the business associated with processing “big data” (big data) will reach $ 16.9 billion over three years . ”

But not only Linux supporters see that “big data” will work on linux and open source solutions. Benjamin S. Woo, vice president of storage systems at IDC, said, among other things: “A large number of new open-source projects related to infrastructure investments will receive a substantial growth rate.”

Linux users in enterprises already know this. The Linux Foundation survey showed that 72% of linux users in the world's largest companies plan to expand the use of linux servers in the next 12 months to support increasing data levels, while only 36% said they intend to expand the number of windows servers to work with "Big data".

Overall, in 2012 the situation looks good for Linux servers and their users. Perhaps the biggest problem that will have to face - the search for sufficiently qualified Linux-specialists. More than 80% of companies that use Linux give Linux professionals priority when they hire .