[Linux-aus] Who can make sense of Gartner's prognostications?

[Con Zymaris]

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6861814%255E15306,00.html

 LINUX penetration within Australian enterprises may reach 90 per cent 
 within three years, but it will remain a niche technology, with only 10 
 to 15 per cent of IT infrastructure running on the open source software, 
 according to Gartner.

 According to a survey of 121 large Australian companies, about 52 per  
 cent of businesses now use Linux in their server environment - up from 
 39 per cent last year. Australian companies follow Taiwan in being the Asia 
 Pacific region's highest adopters of the technology.

...

Even with this phenomenonal growth rate, they claim it to be a niche 
player. The interesting thing is the fact that Gartner claims Linux will 
reach 90% of organisations within 3 years. 

What's particularly strange is that Linux's deployment characteristics
normally follow a path where an organisation which deploys it, ends up
deploying many many more systems over time. 

Normally, the hardest thing is to get Linux in the front door.  Once it
has its foot in, it spreads organically throughout an organisation, and
often usurps many other platforms that were there beforehand.

Maybe we can re-brand Linux the prickly-pear of platforms? ;-)

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Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne 03 9621 2377 
Cybersource: Unix/Linux, TCP/IP and Web App. Development  www.cyber.com.au