Linux wins during recession

As might have been supposed, the general economic crisis was in the hands of the Open Source movement. Analytical company IDC has published the latest data on the procurement plans of IT departments of large companies for 2009. The results are predictable (and not only because the study was commissioned by Novell): more and more companies are trying to save money and switch to open source software.

More than half of the companies are planning to accelerate the transition to the Linux platform this year. More than 72% of respondents have already decided or are discussing an increase in the share of open source software at their server solutions, and 68% said the same with respect to desktop computers. The latter figure is especially surprising. Mainly, companies plan to implement open source software on computers for office work and for technical staff. I can’t even believe that more than half of the companies are going to do it, because the penetration of open source software on working desktops has been hard and squeaky, with almost no progress for several years. Is there a turning point?

About 49% of large companies around the world plan that Linux will become their main server platform within five years.