The Future is Bright for Linux

Linux, the new kid on the block of operating systems has been enjoying a steady growth and adoption in the Enterprise Servers segment for the last few years and especially in the Largest Enterprises, Fortune 1,000 and Government Agencies.

 In the early days, few years ago, around 2002/2003, as I was a Product Marketing Manager and a Linux Advocate , part of the IBM Linux Technology Center, we were advocating and preaching the benefits of Linux to our customers, our ecosystems of partners, & developers, to Press & Media, in order to accelerate Linux adoption, and we had to overcome many obstacles; our programmers were developing codes in our Linux Labs to offer to the Linux Open Source Community; Our Linux Team was building integrated infrastructure offering for ISVs and customers to build their applications on top and we were collaborating with Industries Open Standards groups to create Industry Open Frameworks. We have been just a part of a much larger movement, but we had been embracing this new wave, and our involvement has modestly but certainly been helping the early adoption of this new OS in the Enterprise segment and I am glad to have been part of it.

Only few years later, today, it’s amazing to see how Linux has been evolving, growing and is widely recognised as an Enterprise level OS.

So from whom is Linux grabbing market share?

Originally Linux was mainly used by early adopters for tests, pilots and developers, and then it quickly started to replace UNIX in the Enterprise to migrate UNIX applications or deploy new Edge applications and by more and more developers to develop new applications.

In a second phase adoption went broader to more enterprises, migrating more and more UNIX applications, and moved to more mission-critical applications.

However lately Linux is also significantly grabbing market share from Microsoft and that is indeed a new trend.

-The latest report published by Linux Foundation End User Council (a non-profit organisation) and Yeoman Technology Group reveals some very interesting facts and numbers that I would summarise for you:

• 76.4%of Big companies are planning to add more Linux servers in the next year,
• 41.2% are planning to add Windows servers in the next year,
• 43.6% are planning to decrease use of Windows servers in the next year,
• 60% are planning to use Linux for more mission critical workloads,
• 66% are deploying new applications on Linux,
• 36% are migrating from Windows,
• 31.4% are migrating from Unix to Linux,
• CIOs see Linux as more strategic, and less as a way to just cut cost,
• Features and technical superiority came in at 67.5% as the primary driver for adopting Linux,
• 65.4% said lower TCO is a factor but not the first driver,
• 50% said that ability to modify code was a reason to adopt Linux,
• 45.8% said that long-term viability of the platform is a reason to adopt Linux,
• 33% say that they test and submit bug reports,
• 13.4% actively contribute code to Linux,
• 70.3% are using Linux as their primary cloud platform,
• 86.5% of respondents feel Linux continues to improve,
• 60% of their CIO sees Linux as more strategic to the organization as compared to three years ago.

So in conclusion we can see some clear market trends:

– Linux continue to take market share from UNIX but now also grab market share from Windows.

– Large Enterprise plans to deploy more Linux servers than Windows servers in the next year and even more in the next 5 years.

– Linux adoption by large enterprises is accelerating and moving from edge to mission-critical workloads.

– Features, technical superiority, security and quality are the major drivers of adoption and not lower cost or better TCO anymore.

– Customer satisfaction is quite high.

– Linux is dominant for new developments and deployments on Cloud infrastructures and brand new “Greenfield” environment, which is the future.

The picture is not totally Pink, there is still a few obstacles on the road, the two top concerns about Linux adoption are hardware drivers and interoperability, and in third a lack of skilled resources –which is good news for the job market.

Interesting data came from another study done by Springboard Research in partnership with Spiceworks, in India, where small and mid-size businesses are increasingly favouring the Linux operating system, showing that between April 2009 and May 2010, overall Linux server OS adoption in India increased to 8.1 percent from just 7 percent and continues to rise.

This survey also revealed that Linux adoption in the Asia/Pacific region registered at almost 26 percent higher than in the U.S. and grew even faster than the global average.

So: Is Linux the UNIX Killer AND the Windows Killer?

For sure Linux has not been successfully yet on the desktop side, except for the unconditional love of many software developers and computers geeks, but its success on the server side has been demonstrated.

All this combined clearly shows that Linux is on the Rise and we can predict without risk a Bright Future for Linux.

Cloud Computing: The sky is the limit, but where is the money ?

With the combination of several factors: economic crisis and signs of recovery, increasingly complex virtual and physical IT infrastructure, an aging server installed base, maturing new technologies and IT managers challenged to simplify infrastructure, deliver new services quickly and reduce capital expenses and operation cost, demand for both public and private cloud computing is growing.

First let’s look at a few numbers:

• IDC says the total global cloud market in 2010 will be $22 billion and $55 billion in 2014.
• IDC says the total servers and storage account for $5 billion-to-$6 billion in 2010 and $15-to-$20 billion in 2015.
• IDC also predicts server revenue for public cloud computing will grow from $582 million in 2009 to $718 million in 2014. Server revenue for the much larger private cloud market will grow from $7.3 billion to $11.8 billion in the same time period.
• Gartner states: Cloud services are expected to hit $68.3 billion in 2010,  a 16.6% rise compared to 2009 cloud services revenue,
• According to IBM: The global cloud computing market is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 28 percent from $47 billion in 2008 to $126 billion by 2012,
• Amazone, a Pioneer in Cloud Computing, will generate a total revenue of $500 million this year and $1.1 billion by 2014 with its Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Based on UBS Investment Research firm, AWS gross revenue growth from 2006 to 2011 is estimated at 801 percent annual increase ($329.4 million).
• UBS analysts believe that the total market for AWS-type services will be between $5-to-$6 billion in 2010 and will eventually grow to $15-to-$20 billion in 2014.
• RightScale, another major Cloud Services Provider, announced a 1,000 percent customer spending increase from June 2009 through June 2010, a significant Cloud-based revenue growth, and a 100% increase in number of Cloud customers between the first quarters of 2009 and 2010 (43,030 to 80,080).

By the way, these revenue numbers are quite small compare to total IT market, Cloud Computing is still young but the offering is maturing and starting to shake the IT market, and even If Analysts experts do not agree on the same estimated numbers, all agree that Cloud Computing growth is sky-rocketing, and growth (and margin) is what everyone is looking for.

That is however a big and attractive pie, and there is no doubt that a lot of players are – or will be- running for a slice of it, so the question is: where is the money and who will be the winners?

First winners of the Cloud have been startups, development and test labs, Web businesses, online storage, content distribution and social media websites.

Private Cloud market opportunity appears to be huge, and today, many companies are testing or building their own private clouds on small-scale projects, however due to  the lack of maturity in enterprise-class cloud infrastructure products,some security issues, and some uncertainty on the real cost saving, Private Cloud will still be a small part of the pie on a short-term perspective.

Public Cloud has more potential and is the real Eldorado for now, and therefore many cloud solutions or services  providers are quickly moving from selling clouds to enterprises to targeting service providers for partnerships, to create an ecosystem and offer a complete service.

Web services hosted in the Cloud are definitively growing, customer demand is still growing fast, starting with Media Companies and Mobile Services as an example, as per numbers above, so Cloud Hosting and Service Providers market is certainly a real business opportunity, and today’s winners.

As Cloud Services is a natural evolution for Web hosting and virtualization, Many web hosters or outsourcers have rebranded their services as Cloud Services, offering Cloud, on-demand and pay-as-you-go hosting services, and many Virtualization vendors have rebranded their offerings as Cloud.

Software vendors are offering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS),

Infrastructure vendors are offering Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS),

Applications vendors are offering Applications-as-a-Service (AaaS),

Platform vendors are offering Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) etc…

If Enterprises are still being prudent in investing on Private Cloud, the Hybrid cloud is a balanced solution combining both public and private resources , managed through a common framework simplifying operations and reducing operation cost. Lately, Hybrid Cloud solutions offered by large vendors as IBM, HP, Microsoft etc has been slowly but steadily gathering interest, adoption and investment.

Finally, as per numbers above, there is a significant new business opportunity for servers and storage vendors, in both Private and Public Cloud market. Based on IDC report, almost 20% of servers purchased in 2009 were for cloud computing deployments.

In conclusion, the business opportunity is there, with real growth and profit, and I believe Web hosted services and Public Cloud Services Providers are today’s winners, Hybrid Cloud is on the rise, but in the future Private Enterprise Cloud may finally emerge as the holy grail.

Question for you is WHEN ?