Linux Gaining Ground at the Office

The Linux operating system has "an established and growing presence" in the enterprise market, though it remains a nascent technology in the early stages of adoption, according to a new study released Monday by the research unit of The Goldman Sachs Group investment bank.

The study, based on an October survey of 100 IT managers at large U.S.-based multinational corporations, says that 39 percent of respondents had deployed Linux "in some capacity"--not only for the traditional Linux niche of ordinary print/file, e-mail, and Web servers, and desktop PCs, but also for more important tasks in mainframes, data centers, application servers, and databases.

The study cautions, however, that "Linux will need to prove itself among early adopters before more wide-scale deployment" in the data center. Moreover, Linux didn't rank as a top priority for respondents, a sign that its adoption will be slow and steady, rather than explosive, according to the study.

Still, the future looks bright for Linux in the data center, according to the study, as more and more IT managers recognize the cost savings that the operating system can yield and as more enterprise software becomes available for it.

Cutting Costs

In other findings, the study concludes that the top priority for IT managers right now is to cut costs, as IT budgets on average are slated to increase a paltry 2 to 3 percent in 2003.

The best-case timetable for IT spending to accelerate again will be during the second half of 2003, most respondents believe--and then only if their companies' revenue increases significantly and profitability improves, according to the study. This consensus indicates that IT spending is tied to macroeconomic improvements, and not so much to compelling technology offerings, the survey found.

As for 2002, only 3 percent of respondents said they planned to overspend their IT budget. The rest said they planned to "spend out" their budget (39 percent), to slightly underspend it (53 percent), or to significantly underspend it (4 percent) by the end of the year.

Other top-ranking priorities for IT managers include application integration, information security, and disaster recovery/business continuity. At the other end, relatively low-ranking IT priorities include managed network services, adoption of the Linux operating system, and network convergence of technologies such as voice-over-IP and videoconferencing.

Respondents named Microsoft, Red Hat, Veritas Software, IBM, and BEA Systems as vendors that are gaining share of their software spending dollars, while identifying Computer Associates International, Novell, Siebel Systems, and Oracle as vendors that are losing share, according to the survey.

Survey respondents included chief information officers, IT directors, chief technology officers, and IT managers from companies with annual revenue ranging from less than $1 billion to more than $10 billion. The respondents work in such industries as financial services, communications, manufacturing, government, retail, health care, and education.