Growth of Linux Server Shipments Still Robust

Linux (news - web sites) continues to score big percentage gains in the server market, despite the fact that revenues have hit the US$1 billion mark. And IDC reports that a significant transition to Linux continues.


Up until now, Linux has been popular in one-way and two-way systems. But IDC predicts that the open-source operating system will be represented in eight-way configurations because of the release of Linux 2.6, which supports scalable server systems.


Big Base, High Growth


IDC predicts that revenue from global Linux server shipments will reach US$9.1 billion in 2008. The compounded annual growth rate for the Linux segment of server revenues should sizzle at 22.8 percent, compared to the broader server market rate of 3.8 percent.


High percentage growth would be one thing if the base numbers of Linux servers being deployed were low. But that is not the case. The annual growth rate of Linux server unit shipments has been increasing over the past three years, from 15 percent in the second quarter of 2001 to 40 percent three years later in the second quarter of 2004.


In terms of market share, IDC foresees Linux server shipments to attain 25.7 percent of worldwide server shipments in 2008. In 2003 Linux servers represented 15.6 percent of all shipments.


Form Follows Function


With Linux gaining such a strong foothold in the market, IDC's Jean Bozman, vice president for enterprise computing, decided to break out projections for server types shipped with Linux.


"We wanted to see the data in terms of form-factor," Bozman told NewsFactor. She is the author of the new report "Linux Servers Shipping in Many Form-Factors to Take on New Workloads."


In the five-year period ending in 2003, one-way Linux server shipments jumped 37.5 percent. Dual processors also appear to be a lucrative segment. In the same five-year period, shipments of two-way systems skyrocketed 89.9 percent. In 2003, about 74 percent of all Linux servers shipped were dual-processor systems.


The research shows that Linux also has a large piece of the hot blade server market, where it enjoys about a 50 percent share in third quarter shipments. The OS was loaded in nearly 20 percent of rack-mounted machines and in 11 percent of pedestal servers.

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