Corporates see Linux as 'experimental'

Linux is still failing to make a dent in the corporate market, according to recent research.

Some Fortune 1000 companies polled by analyst Goldman Sachs are treating the open source OS as an accompaniment to the Windows platform and not as a replacement, while most have no plans to even look at the OS in the next twelve months.

Despite recent high profile cases such as Amazon.com backing the Linux platform, a majority of corporates still plump for the Microsoft alternative.

As a case in point, Amazon itself had not ditched Windows, but instead dropped a proprietary Unix platform, which in itself was a move out of the norm.

Only 24 per cent of the 100 executives polled by the analyst said they would consider using Linux in addition to Windows and Unix environments. The majority are firmly rooted in the Windows environment.

According to Goldman Sachs, looking at the Linux platform is still low on the list of technology priorities. Sixty five per cent of companies have no plans to roll out Linux in the enterprise in the next 12 months.

The report found, however, that Linux's big brother made it into the top three corporate priorities. Apart from investing in Unix servers for critical apps, other investments included getting Windows 2000/XP onto the desktop, and securing the network.

Sixty per cent of corporates still see Windows as the primary server OS before 2004, while only three per cent said that Linux was in with a chance.

The analyst said that most companies see Windows as offering a safe option for return on investment, and is the less "experimental" and more conservative choice.