Linux is losing momentum among medium sized enterprises, according to a survey by Canadian research firm Info-Tech Research Group.

After years of increased interest in the open source operating system, IT managers from medium sized businesses have come to a conclusion that open source is not for them.

The findings point to a rift between large enterprises that are increasingly embracing open source and smaller businesses that opt for a Microsoft-centric world.

"There is a downward trend in the interest for Linux," Frank Koelsch, executive vice president of Info-Tech Research Group told vnunet.com.

"Linux was hot and everybody was looking at it. Now people are taking amore sombre look."

Koelsch based his findings on an independent survey among 1422 IT decision makers in mid sized companies in Canada, the US and UK. .

Of the respondents only 27 per cent runs Linux inside their organisation. Of the group that doesn't have Linux today, 48 percent said they weren't interested in the open source operating system, and only 10 percent said they planned to look at it over the next three years.

The dominance of Microsoft in the midsize market is one of the reasons why Linux isn't catching on there Koelsch said.

Companies are also held back by the limited size of IT budgets. Introducing Linux would require them to expand the expertise of their IT staffs, which might cause them to hire additional staff members.

The same survey indicated that security is at the top of these company's priority lists.

Although Koelsch acknowledges that the midsized segment's dependence on Microsoft is part of the problem there, he doesn't see users replacing their Windows systems with computers running Linux any time soon, even though Linux has the image of being more secure.

General management often holds back Linux and open source projects because they perceive that the software poorly supported, hard to maintain and unreliable for mission critical applications.

"The perception with business management is that Linux isn't ready. Business management is very risk averse," Koelsch said.