Canonical survey: Ubuntu Server is mission-critical
Results of a survey by Ubuntu sponsor Canonical and analyst firm RedMonk say the Linux version is ready for the enterprise. Look out Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Novell.
Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu Linux, and analyst firm RedMonk have released survey results that show usage patterns for the Ubuntu server product.
The survey, completed by nearly 7,000 respondents, shows that Ubuntu Server Edition is being used for most enterprise tasks, such as Web sites, files, databases, and mail servers, and is considered "mission-critical" by most respondents.
This is an interesting set of results, even if they are biased, considering that Ubuntu has largely been known for its desktop grace and focus on developing a better Linux user experience. But the enterprise is where all the money is, and this survey shows that Ubuntu is well-positioned to garner not only a large user base but also a large revenue base.
Which competitors should be concerned? Not so much Red Hat, considering that it, too, has a massive user base and enterprise presence, but definitely Novell, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems, all which have seen their data center market share change over the last few years.
If Ubuntu continues on this trajectory and maintains the "high quality that's free until you need help" business model, it will be extremely difficult for anyone to defend against the data center encroachment.
And some interesting survey result snippets on the hip topics:
Virtualization:
The two most popular open-source technologies, KVM and Xen, are increasingly prominent across all business sizes, which tells an interesting tale, in terms of enterprise usage. The quick rise of KVM is important, as it indicates that Ubuntu made the right choice to select it as our maintained technology. Ubuntu was the first distribution to make KVM the default fully maintained and supported technology, with (Ubuntu version) 8.04 LTS.The cloud:
Many users think the cloud is ready; they believe Ubuntu would be a good platform for it, but not that many have decided to deploy it yet. That's not surprising, given the maturity levels of the technologies available in the market currently. We believe in Ubuntu as a platform for innovation, and we will be looking at ways of delivering cloud (services) into businesses simply and securely on Ubuntu Server Edition, along with explaining how it can provide real value to companies as an infrastructure model.