Shared Solutions Drive Adoption
Linux might be making headway in IT shops because of its low cost and ability to perform, but the operating system's community development model is also driving use. Business-technology professionals say wide online availability of development tools swayed their companies to adopt Linux.

Nearly half of the respondents from small companies in InformationWeek Research's Linux study say accessibility to online development tools is a reason their companies decided to go with Linux. That's just slightly more than the percentage of respondents at companies with annual revenue of $100 million or more.

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Software Is Lacking
Linux's most significant weakness is the limited availability of business software written for it, a problem about a third of respondents using or planning to use the platform in the next year cited. While one-third of survey participants say they use Linux to run enterprise applications, it's unclear whether they're test or production implementations.

Large companies also say they don't want to support another operating system in their data center. But this is less of an issue for small companies. While 11% of large companies report a reluctance to support another operating system such as Linux within their IT environment, this is an issue for only 4% of small companies surveyed.

Diversity Proves Troublesome
Anyone responsible for reining in legacy systems knows firsthand the frustration of dealing with a multitude of systems and software versions. They play havoc with scalability and a project's progress. Companies deploying Linux are encountering compatibility issues. Although not prevalent, companies large and small report their Linux efforts are being slowed by the availability of multiple versions of the operating system. One in five large companies that InformationWeek Research polled considers this a significant weakness of Linux. According to survey results, it's a sentiment that's equally common at small companies.

Large Companies Slower To Adopt
Small companies are more established adopters of Linux than large ones. Nearly half of the 225 small companies surveyed have used Linux for more than two years, while another 31% say they've used Linux for one to two years.

Seventy-one percent of the 149 large sites polled say they're long-time users (more than a year). One quarter have had Linux operating from one to two years, and 45% say they've been running the system for more than two years. Yet large companies also make up a larger pool of new adopters. Nearly one-third of large sites say they've installed Linux in their data center during the past year.