Linux thrives in economic downturn

A recent survey by Novell and IDC demonstrates that more than 50% of IT executives are planning to accelerate Linux adoption this year.

The research claims that the global downturn has encouraged the sudden interest in open source, improving business for Linux.

The survey of over 300 IT professionals in companies of more than 100 staff found that 72% are either deciding whether or not to increase their adoption of Linux on the server, or have already decided to do so. 68% expressed the same interest in the desktop service.

The reasons given are similar to what is driving all businesses in the current climate; cutting costs. Respondents who said they were reluctant to move over to open source gave a lack of application support and difficulties operating with Windows and other environments as reasons not to use Linux.

Markus Rex, senior vice president for open platform solutions at Novell, said: "The feedback gleaned from this survey confirms our belief that, as organisations fight to cut costs and find value in this tough economic climate, Linux adoption will accelerate.”

Following the hit of the credit crunch, Linux were quick to advocate their services, which sparked a backlash from critics who predicted the complete collapse of open source.

It would seem, however, that Linux was right. Further, it would seem that open source is growing with outsourcing; the uptake of Linux is most popular in the Asia Pacific region. Of the 134 respondents from the region, 73% expressed an interest in increasing the adoption of Linux, compared to 53% of respondents overall.