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With the pervasive presence of Windows 7 in the marketplace, and many organizations contemplating an operating system upgrade after a well-documented pass-over of Windows Vista, the Open Source operating system question is once again brought to the forefront of spending decisions.
While many examples of organizations opting for a trial or full deployment of Open Source operating system and applications can be found amongst the past two years of news print, the early results of the CIO Zone Software Spending Intentions survey suggest this run may be coming to an end.
Of those reporting a decrease in Microsoft spending, only a small collection of organizations noted an increase in Red Hat. Digging deeper into organization-type, signs of a potential operating system swap were not present within the Government/Not-for-Profit vertical where historic Open Source migration was most prevalent.
While Open Source will always have a proper foot-hold in the market (without a doubt Open Source is more efficient for niche applications), were the past two years of Open Source popularity driven purely by the disruption caused by Vista? Was there a perfect storm of Vista-disappointment and economic pull-back that drove the migration? There are significant hurdles facing the wide-spread adoption of Open Source, but did 7 close the disruption-window (no pun intended) fast enough to prevent further Open Source deployment?
Again, Open Source plays an important role in the computing environment - a role that is expanding and will no doubt allow the participating vendors to grow and benefit. The broader computing community, however, benefits from the walled garden of the Windows system (for better or worse). I am hesitant to believe that a product disruption, or economic spending downturn, could be severe enough to drive a wide-scale migration of users.
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