Linux sales dip as corporates buy more mainframes

Sales of Linux-based servers decreased by 1.8% over the year, the first time this operating system has suffered a dip in revenue since the first quarter of 2002, according to analyst IDC's second quarter EMEA Quarterly Server Tracker 2008.

Beatriz Valle, research analyst at IDC, said, "Corporates have been replacing their legacy systems and they have not been migrating to Linux x86 servers." Instead, she said enterprise users have been buying scalable Risc and Itanium-based hardware and mainframes.

The sales figures also show that IT directors are struggling to make the most of whatever budget is left over at the end of the year. Sales of high-end servers and IBM z-series mainframes were particularly high, suggesting that IT directors in major companies used their remaining budget in the last quarter of 2007 to buy mainframes and other high priced server hardware.

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-Ken