Linux Job Market Trends On the Move - page 3

Upwardly Mobile

Linux job openings are, of course, a direct reflection of how the open source OS is used in business environments. Some of the user polls conducted by Dice shed light on how Linux is used in corporate data centers. For example:

What virtualization software are you using to run your business server environment (July 20-27, 2007):

VMWare: 55%
Virtualization in production? Are you crazy?: 19%
Microsoft Virtual Server: 15%
Xen (Red Hat, SUSE or XenSource): 6%
Other: 5%

Although the virtualization sector is dominated by proprietary software, virtualization (especially the Linux-friendly VMWare) enables greater ease of use for Linux in the enterprise.

Where is Linux deployed in your business? (July 27-August 3, 2007)

No Linux for us. We've got a different solution: 35%
A mix of servers and desktops: 19%
Servers are all Linux, desktops are all proprietary: 18%
A few specific computers here and there: 18%
Desktops and servers, we're Linux all the way: 10%

Perhaps most noteworthy is the 10% of companies that use a Linux-only solution for their desktops. This statistic might surprise observers who know that Linux desktop use in the overall population is about 3 percent.

But in fact it's not that surprising, Melde says. "There have long been a few stalwarts," on the Linux desktop in the business environment. Moreover, in the last couple of years the Linux desktop has made great strides in terms of usability, he observes, pointing in particular to Ubuntu, which he calls the "most usable."

It's gotten to the point where you don't have to be a geek to run Linux on your desktop--even regular people are doing it. "My 80-year-old father runs Linux," Melde says. "He didn't set it up, but he runs it just fine."