Open source ECM provider Alfresco is publicizing the release of its second global survey of open source use in the enterprise.

The Alfresco Open Source Barometer Survey was conducted throughout 2007 using opt-in data provided by Alfresco's 35,000 community members in what the company calls "the largest-ever" study of open source usage aimed at the enterprise stack.

"Alfresco's Open Source Barometer addresses questions of how open source is used, who the leading vendors are, and differences from evaluation to deployment, by geography, and trends over time," commented Ian Howells, chief marketing officer at Alfresco Software. "Our goal is to provide a leading indicator of enterprise open-source adoption trends, examining how and where open source is used in the Global 5000 enterprise stack."

Alfresco asked users about their preferences in operating systems, application servers, databases, browsers, and portals to capture the latest information about how companies evaluate and deploy open source and proprietary software stacks in the enterprise.

Some notable findings include:

-- Deployments of Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux had a market share of 24% and 21%, respectively.

-- Operating systems: "Users evaluate on a Windows laptop and deploy on Linux" -- 41% of evaluations were on Windows, dropping to 26% for deployments, whereas 51% of deployments were on Linux.

-- Databases: "Sun still shines on MySQL" -- MySQL, 60%; Oracle, 14%; MySQL Server, 13%.

-- Application servers: "Tomcat dominates with largest market share in study" -- Tomcat 70%, JBoss Application Server 18%.

-- Office suite: "When it comes to content it comes from Microsoft Office. However, users in Germany and France are twice as likely to use OpenOffice than in the U.S. or U.K." -- Microsoft Office, 66%, OpenOffice, 24%.

-- Browsers and portals: "For content and mashups, browsers preferred" -- Browsers 59%, portal 41%

-- Virtualization: "If it is virtual, it's VMware" – VMware 61%, Microsoft Virtual Server 16%

-- ECM usage: "Users want a SharePoint alternative for document management, Web content management, and, increasingly, collaboration that runs on Windows, Linux, MySQL or VMware" -- The top three content management and collaboration requirements were document management 67%, Web content management 43%, collaboration 34%.

-- Clear leader: "Open Source creates a clear leader at each level in the stack." -- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), MySQL, JBoss, Tomcat

-- Mixed stack: "Users don't want to be tied and require flexibility to change over time."

According to the company, data collected from July 2007 to December 2007 included questions about office suite and virtualization products, content management requirements, and sample environments in where pilots were deployed using Alfresco's ECM services.

Ian Howells will present the Open Source Barometer Survey on the Executive Insights track at JBoss World, Orlando, Feb. 13, 2008.