User Expectations with regard to supporting mission-critical business applications with a Linux environment (2007-2011)

By the end of the decade, many more organizations will begin using Linux in production environments, claim the researchers, who surveyed 133 senior IT decision makers.

Saugatuck believes that the number of businesses in early or full deployment of Linux for mission-critical application workloads will grow by almost 40 percent between 2007 and 2009 and then shoot up by 80 percent between 2009 and 2011.

"By now it should be obvious to even the most casual industry observers that Linux operating systems -- and open source-based software in general -- have reached critical marketplace mass," the authors said in the report.

"Recent Linux deals and announcements by Oracle and Microsoft have only reinforced the 'open source is enterprise-grade' message that IBM, Unisys and other master brand hardware, software and services vendors have been preaching for years. In short, open source, especially Linux, is becoming 'legitimized' by the major vendors for enterprise environments, and user executives are more than happy to believe them."

All industry stakeholders, including hardware vendors, will need to position themselves to take advantage of this inevitable shift in attitude towards Linux, according to the research.

"Linux is not going to replace legacy operating systems and development environments overnight, or even by 2011. But the powerful trend of acceptance and legitimization of Linux for mission-critical environments indicates that a very large portion of the next generation will be built on Linux," the report says.