“VARBusiness’s State of the Market Research shows that 8
percent of solution providers surveyed said Linux would be their
primary operating system in 2001, up from just 2 percent last
year. While Linux still has a long way to go before unseating
Microsoft’s Windows as the OS of choice, the system picked up a
great deal of momentum in 2000, courtesy of several software
players. Smaller vendors such as Caldera Systems and Red Hat have
specialized in Linux and cornered sizeable portions of the market
(Red Hat sold nearly half the copies of Linux on the market in
1999, according to IDC.).”
“However, larger companies such as IBM and Oracle have thrust
the underdog OS into the mainstream recently. Big Blue announced
new Linux products this month, including a commercial database
software and Web-application software for IBM WebSphere. The
company also helped Linux’s increasing exposure overseas by inking
deals this month with convenience store giant Lawson in Japan and
Telia, Scandinavia’s largest telecommunications and Internet
service provider company. Both corporations will begin using IBM’s
Linux-based servers.”