Last week, the Wall Street Journal published Linux Starts to Find Home on Desktops, in which they find Linux beginning to make inroads as a user desktop platform in corporate IT.

“Linux still goes into only a tiny proportion of the desktop and laptop PCs sold. But in a recent report, market researcher IDC said licenses of both free and purchased versions of Linux software going into PCs world-wide rose 20.8% in 2006 over the previous year and forecast that licenses will increase 30% this year over last. That compares with 10.5% growth in 2004, according to IDC.”

Why? Because of the success of Linux on servers:

“As corporate-technology chiefs become more comfortable with Linux running on their servers, they are beginning to warm to the idea of installing Linux in PCs for workers who don’t require most of the features offered by Windows and other Microsoft software, such as the Office suite of programs.”

And the rapidly-developing world is likely to be a major catalyst for increased Linux growth:

“So far, the clearest shift toward desktop Linux is happening in Asia, which “may turn out over time to be a pivotal market for Linux on the [PC] desktop,” Mr. Gillen says. Shipments of Linux for PCs in Asia in 2005 caused a surge in overall Linux licenses that year, he says.”

Overall, this is a perfect example of disruption according to the model described by Clayton Christensen. It’s fascinating and very rewarding to watch it in action!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 am and is filed under GNU/Linux. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.