What percentage of computers in US corporate environments currently
run UNIX, Linux, or a derivative?  This includes both desktop and
server machines.  This includes both internal (behind the firewall)
machines, as well as machines publically accessible via the Internet
(i.e. Internet host counts alone don't help much here, because they
are heavily weighted towards UNIX).

Due to the high rate of Linux adoption, recent numbers will be much
more useful than those from pre-2000 -- I suspect the bubble burst and
Microsoft's new license policies dissolved a lot of the resistance to
Linux.

I *suspect* the answer to this question is something in the ballpark
of 10%, but I can't prove that, and could be way off.  I know these
surveys have been done to death though -- researchers might try IDC,
for instance, and look through the press releases of Red Hat etc.  I'm
looking for a real number, with references to those supporting
surveys.

Steve

I have some statistics about the use of Linux, dating from May 6,
2002.  The data derive from a survey of 550 IT professionals within US
companies.  Admittedly, this is a small sample!  The rate of increase
in the number of Linux servers is currently faster than that of
Windows servers among respondents to this survey.  Unix licenses are
now accounting for a smaller percentage of the overall server market. 
About 80% of sites using Linux use it for their Web servers.  However,
Linux is found on desktop PCs in approximately 45-50% of cases.  Linux
is also used widely to host databases, for file-and printer-sharing
networks, and for application development projects. Small companies
are more likely to use Linux for email and other messaging systems
than large companies.  One obstacle to the wider adoption of Linux is
the limited knowledge of IT staff - cited by 40-45% of companies. 
Another obstacle is the lack of software which can run on Linux -
cited by about 30% of respondents.  This and further information from
the survey is available at:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020502S0010  All the data
presented is divided into that for small companies and that for large
companies.

Another survey, by International Data Corp, was reported in June 2002:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/99/08/02/990802opreed.xml
According to this survey, "Unix is much more common in large
organizations, where 65 percent of respondents reported using it, than
in midsize (49 percent) or small (36 percent) organizations" and
"Despite conventional wisdom that Linux is used primarily in small
enterprises, IDC found that a higher percentage of large organizations
(17 percent) than midsize (12 percent) or small companies (14 percent)
reported using Linux"

A survey of 2,092 IT professionals by the Open-Source UNIX Research
Initiative (http://www.survey.com/bidw/description_linux.html),
carried out over 12 weeks, from mid-November 1999 to mid-February
2000, found that "open-source UNIX appears to be well on its way to
becoming one of the top three operating systems on organizational
servers and a viable presence on the desktop, as well."  "About 6% of
respondents’ organizations who have already deployed OSU are using BSD
only, about 73% are using Linux only, and about 21% are using both.
The Apache Web server is the most common open-source application among
both non-adopters and potential adopters, followed by Sendmail and
SAMBA."
There is far more detail available in the executive summary which is
available at the URL cited above.  The complete report can be
purchased for  $995  at
http://www.survey.com/bidw/store.html#jumpwin2kadopt

Linux is also increasingly being adopted by the US government and
military according to a report from June 2002:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20020530/D7JR1BRO0.html

In an article published in November 2001, Amazon.com said said it was
able to cut technology expenses by about 25 percent, from $71 million
to $54 million, mainly through migrating to a Linux-based technology
platform (http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,5098989,00.html)

Search terms: Linux, Unix, percentage, US, companies,

I hope this answers your question.  Please request clarification if
you require further detail.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by stevegt-ga on 11 Jun 2002 20:14 PDT

These are good surveys, and should be useful in other ways, but what
I'm most interested in is the percentage of *computers* which are
running UNIX or Linux.  These surveys seems to be discussing the
percentage of *organizations* which are using Linux (and remember, I'm
also interested in UNIX).  Or did I miss something?

In other words, if 100 organizations each have one Linux and 4 UNIX
machines, then 100% of those organizations use *nix, but only 5% of
their machines are UNIX or Linux.  It's the latter number that I'm
looking for.  See what I mean?

We need this number in order to complete another Google Answers
question -- see https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=8102
in case you're curious.  Right now we're using 10% as the ratio, and
I'm not sure how right that is.

Steve

---

Request for Answer Clarification by stevegt-ga on 11 Jun 2002 20:46 PDT

Okay, for instance, http://www.survey.com/bidw/description_linux.html
shows some statistics, unfortunately broken down by server and
desktop, which show *nix machine count percentages of about 26 and 13
percent respectively.  What we don't know is the ratio of server to
desktop in the survey, so we can only guess.  If we use 1:100, then
that would give us about 15% *nix usage on a per-host basis.  That's
the kind of number I'm looking for.  Do you see what I mean?

---

Clarification of Answer by tehuti-ga on 12 Jun 2002 07:08 PDT

Hello again, 

As you note http://www.survey.com/bidw/description_linux.html  gives
data showing that Windows accounted for 54.33% of all server operating
system deployments. The figure for Unix (any) was 19.88%, and
BSD/Linux was 6.25%.  With respect to desktops, over 92% ran some form
of Windows, 4.18% some form of Mac OS, 8.5% Unix (any) and 4.23%
BSD/Linux – obviously a number of these will have two or more OS
installed.

I thought this was the information that you were seeking when you
asked for the % of computers running –ix operating systems..

I have not been able to find any information on the ratio of servers
to desktops or on the actual number of computers in companies, from
which to extrapolate. I would guess that you really need
sector-specific information as the proportions will probably vary in
different industries.
There is a  report that might provide some of this information with
respect to large companies, however at $2,995 its price rather exceeds
the price of the question you are attempting to answer :)
http://www.instat.com/abstracts/ms/large/2000/EM0008EB_abs.htm

Here are some other sources, but again they only give percentages of
one type of computer use.  I do admit they are flawed in other ways
too.  However, I have not been able to come up with any harder data.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/nycu/tech/articles/020114/14linux.htm 
(14 January 2002) An International Data Corporation estimate that the
market share for Linux of desktop use is about 3%.  The article
emphasizes the difficulties of producing estimates of how many
computers run Linux, because the software can be loaded onto as many
machines as desired, with no licensing limitations.

A story in the May 18 2000 edition of the UK newspaper The Guardian,
not specifically limited to the UK, is at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,221905,00.html
“the operating system of choice on 25% of all new server shipments, up
from 16% in 1998, according to International Data Corporation. Up to
30% of web servers run Linux, according to some estimates.”

Within the –ix sector, the global market share is split :  Linux: 
34.0%, BSD: 21.2%, Solaris: 20.7%, Other:  24.1%  (no date given for
this information) http://www.embedded.com.au/market.html
 
http://www.netcraft.com/Survey/index-200106.html 
The June 2001 Netcraft webserver survey across all domains: 
operating systems used by computers running public Internet Web sites,
March 2001
Windows 49.2% (Windows 2000, NT4, NT3, Windows 95, Windows 98), Linux
28.5%,
Solaris 7.6% (Solaris 2, Solaris 7, Solaris 8), BSD 6.3% (BSDI BSD/OS,
FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD), Other Unix 2.4% (AIX, Compaq Tru64, HP-UX,
IRIX, SCO Unix, SunOS 4 and others)
Other non-Unix 2.5% (MacOS, NetWare, proprietary IBM OSs),
Unidentified 3.6%.
“Although Apache running on various Unix systems runs more sites than
Windows, Apache is heavily deployed at hosting companies and ISPs who
strive to run as many sites as possible on a single computer to save
costs. Windows is most popular with end-user and self hosted sites,
where the host to computer ratio is much smaller.”  There is a further
breakdown of server types by domain at
http://www.netcraft.com/Survey/Reports/

Admittedly this is worldwide and in all sectors, so I think it would
give an outside maximum, i.e. use of Linux and Unix for webservers in
US companies would not exceed the figures quoted here.

“according to a recent survey from market-research firm Web Side
Story, Linux accounts for just 0.24 percent--that's point twenty-four
percent or less than one-quarter of one percent--of all desktop OS
use. According to the company, Windows and Macintosh users combined
make up about 98 percent of the desktop OS market” "For almost 3
years, Linux usage share has fluctuated between 0.2 and 0.3 percent,
with no substantial growth,”  (Dec 20, 2001,
http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=23569 )
Again this is a worldwide survey, and the data were obtained by
recording the OS of Web users.  Therefore, it will not reflect users,
including corporate users, who do not have Web access.

Sorry I have not been able to help you further

---

Clarification of Answer by tehuti-ga on 13 Jun 2002 04:13 PDT

I found a reference to the survey.com survey in an article by USA
Today http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth076.htm  USA Today
obtained a copy of the full report. The article says: "Linux and other
"free" operating systems will more than double their market share to
9% of corporate PCs over the next two years, a new survey from
Survey.com predicts." which implies that the current share is
somewhere around 4%.

This appears to be an overall figure for all PCs, servers and desktop.

A further snippet: "International Data Corp.'s Dan Kusnetzky says....
Survey.com's numbers "fall right in line with the results we've seen.
That implies the adoption is happening faster than we had anticipated.
But it's still largely in servers." "

I'm afraid I still haven't found similar information on Unix.

You must all forget that the Linux kernal is directly based off of the
unix kernal, and therefore such statistics don't seem to make much
sense.  The following OS's are Unix-based: Linux, Unix, OpenBSD, and I
think Sun OS.  Not entirely sure about Sun, but the other's all were
based off of Unix.  In fact, looking at Microsoft's WINSOCK code,
you'll find it to be a DIRECT rip-off of some Unix TCP/IP protocols!
Everything down to the credits was a total copy, a the programmers
forgot to remove the comments by Unix coders! If you want a better
understanding of alternative server OS's check out www.slashdot.org
for tons of information.