“That Linux has appeal among Internet service providers and
application hosting firms is a given. But just how much of a hold
Linux already has established among Fortune 500 companies continues
to be up for debate.”
“If you believe Oracle, the self-proclaimed king of the
enterprise Linux realm, Linux is already well entrenched in
corporate America. But other Linux backers, such as IBM and VA
Linux Systems, are more conservative in their claims as to where
Linux is installed today — and by whom — and where it might be
installed tomorrow.”
“Linux is experiencing massive growth in the server sector. …
Exactly where Linux is being installed is not quite as clear,
however. In an installation study on Linux in January, IDC found
that 42 percent of Linux systems were running as Web servers, and
24 percent as Web infrastructure (messaging, file and print,
cacheing and proxy serving) platforms. Only about ten percent of
Linux servers were running “enterprise-class” applications, such as
commercial databases, according to IDC.”