Linux showing signs of solid growth: IDC study

But the changing nature of Linux deployments should give the open-source operating system a new avenue to seek prosperity.

The IDC study found that in addition to traditional infrastructure workloads handled by Linux server operating systems, such as DNS, DHCP and Web serving, that deployments for such applications as ERP and CRM are beginning to take hold.

For example, Novell and SAP extended a partnership in March that will have Novell supplying Linux-based platform, virtualization and identity support to SAP's small and mid-sized customers.

IDC found that Linux servers deployed for business and commercially oriented workloads, including business processing and decision support, will grow from 2001 through 2011 from 9 to 17.7 percent.

The IDC white paper showed that business processing deployments grew from 6.7% of Linux server operating system deployments in 2003 to 8.2% in 2007. Decision support workloads were up from 7.3 to 9.1 percent over the same time period.

IDC found that spending on software related to Linux server platforms is on a compounded annual grow rate of 35.7 percent from 2006 to 2011.

The IDC paper showed that software on the Linux platform holds about 4 percent of the current overall market, which represents US$10 billion of a US$242 billion total. The Linux share is expected to grow to more than 9 percent by 2011, which will represent US$31 billion in software revenue in a US$330 billion market.

The Linux Foundation Summit, which is an invite-only meeting, runs through Thursday with an agenda that focuses discussion around on-going development areas including desktop architecture, printing, virtualization, mobile/embedded, power management, the Linux Standards Base OS and legal issues.