[ Thanks to Andrew
Swinton for this link. ]
“The market for Linux support services is growing rapidly as an
increasing number of companies adopt the open source operating
system for mission-critical applications.”
“Linuxcare and others have a large potential market. Analyst
firm IDC projects that Linux will grow faster than all other
operating systems combined until 2003. Another analyst firm,
Dataquest, forecasts that Linux will account for 24 percent of the
nearly $16bn worldwide server appliance market by 2003.”
“One reason for Linux’s popularity is that it can be much
cheaper than alternatives. Linux is estimated to be up to 15 times
cheaper than NetWare or Windows NT solutions in applications such
as departmental file and printer serving. But lack of support can
be a drawback.”