The Open Source Development Labs on Wednesday unveiled key findings from a newly completed IDC market study, projecting that the overall revenue for desktops, servers, and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008. A summary of the study is available as a free download.
“This is the first authoritative and comprehensive snapshot of how people truly use Linux, and its not surprising for us to see that the adoption is far ahead of even some of the most optimistic estimates,” said OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen, in a statement.
The new study attempts to quantify both the shipments and installed base of servers and PCs running Linux. It includes Linux shipped with new hardware deliveries, Linux running aboard redeployed systems, and instances where Linux is used as a guest operating system.
“When this expanded view of the marketplace is considered, the resulting server market for shipments and redeployments with Linux is increased by 36 percent over net new shipments in 2004,” the OSDL statement said.
Additionally, IDC forecasts that while Linux remains a minority player on desktop PCs, Linux penetration in that realm will reach $10B annual revenues, on 17 million units shipped globally, by 2008.