News
Good News for Linux; Bad News for W2K
- By Scott Bekker
- 08/17/1999
In one of the first major indicators that there is burgeoning competition in the marketplace, International Data Corp. (IDC,
www.idc.com) published results of a study today that reports 13 percent of respondents said they now use Linux.
"This is an amazing level of growth," says Dan Kusnetzky, IDC program director for operating environments and serverware, in a company statement. "Linux is emerging as a potential competitor to Windows and Unix for some server applications."
Possibly more important is that organizations of all types and sizes indicated they would wait anywhere from 6 to 18 months before beginning wide scale implementations of Windows 2000. Fifty percent of the respondents said that technical stabilization was the reason for waiting on implementing the new OS.
"This is not to say Windows 2000 will not be a success; just the opposite, IDC believes Windows 2000 will succeed," says William Peterson, research manager for IDC's client infrastructure software programs, "over time."
The results come from an IDC study to measure the adoption rate of Windows NT and Windows 98. The firm surveyed 788 end-user sites in the United States and Canada and the results are presented in two reports: Windows Adoption: Windows 98 vs. Windows NT and Windows NT Server Study. Those reports can be purchased directly from IDC. -- Brian Ploskina
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.