Do Hard Times Make Linux A Smarter OS Choice?

Plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests that the economic downturn has actually been good for Linux. A recent study backs up that suggestion with some hard numbers.Here is how InformationWeek summarized an IDC survey of 330 IT managers taken last month: "Sixty-five percent of the 330 respondents said they plan to increase Linux server workloads by 10% or more this year. Sixty-three percent said they will increase their use of Linux on the desktop by more than 10% this year, although such an increase would still probably represent a minuscule share of all desktops. Forty-nine percent said they expect Linux will be their primary server platform within five years.

The first two numbers happen to closely track the 62% of respondents who said they are facing IT budget cuts or 'are moving more cautiously and investing only where needed,' noted authors Al Gillen and Brett Waldman."

I'm always wary of third-party research, given how often such findings are tilted to support a particular point of view. (In this case, Linux vendor Novell sponsored the survey.) And since the survey included only companies with at least 100 employees, it may be less relevant to very small firms.

It's also interesting to note that other IDC research found an across-the-board drop in server revenue in the fourth quarter of 2008, although both Linux and Unix declined less than half as much as Windows.

Caveats aside, however, the correlation between tighter IT budgets and growing reliance on Linux is very interesting. Of course, there are two ways to spin this relationship: First, it could mean that companies are taking a hard, cold, realistic look at the relative cost of owning Linux and Windows systems.

Or it could mean that desperate times require desperate measures.

I'm pretty cynical -- but not cynical enough to buy the second way of looking at this issue. In my opinion, it makes more sense to assume that tough economic times often force companies to take a new look at old assumptions and to think outside the box.

And that means more companies are deciding the Linux really is the smarter long-term IT investment.