A recent ongoing survey by The Linux Foundation has given some exciting numbers. According to the survey, Linux is
gaining popularity among desktop users. The Linux Foundation is conducting an ambitious survey to found the penetration of Linux at various level. As per the survey the most numbers of desktops were at companies with employees between the range of 1-100, which may roughly be clubbed as SOHO or SME segment. Windows has maintained its dominance with around 59 per cent of the users
running Microsoft''s OS. Where as a whooping, and surprising, 39 per cent are now running Linux on their
machines.
This revelation becomes notable as earlier a general notion was that Linux was more popular among power users or at the server end, but the survey is reflecting on an unexpected trend -- Linux gaining popularity among desktop users.
This report made us think of our organisation and we discovered that we were running different flavours of Linux on around 90 per cent of our machines, only exception being the graphic designing team which heavily depends on some proprietary software.
Vista seems to be the biggest ''turn-off'' for the desktop users as a full fledge machine capable of harvesting every tits and bits of Vista becomes as expensive as an Apple Mac, and people tend to get infatuated with Job''s machines. However, recently the increased focus of the Linux vendors on desktop users have added insult to injury by ''pushing'' Windows users to migrate towards Linux. Also the aggressive marketing of Ubuntu has taken Linux to more desktops than ever (this analysis is independent of LF survey).
When it comes to what operating systems are used withing a company, 64 per cent were running Linux on client desktop, 54 per cent Web server were running on followed by development desktop with 51 per cent Linux powered machines. Where as 37 per cent departmental and 38 per cent enterprise servers were running on Linux. Around 14 per cent embedded devices were getting powered by Linux while around 9 per cent don''t use Linux at all.
We will be keeping an eye on the culmination of survey on 30 November and see how tall Windows and Linux stand against each other, oh yes, not to offend Jobs -- Mac as well!