Unisys Corp. and the SAS Institute Inc. will work together to "make the Linux operating system enterprise-ready for business intelligence," the two companies said Wednesday.
But is there enough demand out there to warrant the duo working to drive enterprise adoption?
The answer, according to Dan Vesset, research director with Framingham, Mass.-based International Data Corp., is that some demand is there and there's more on the way.
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"It's still a small portion of the market, but we expect it to be the fastest growing operating environment in BI [business intelligence] deployments," Vesset said. "We're seeing more and more end user organizations looking to deploy on Linux."
It's a trend that Cary, N.C.-based SAS is seeing as well, said Keith Collins, chief technology officer. Primarily, it is the financial services industry that has been at the forefront of Linux adoption, but telecomm is not far behind.
"That looks to be quickly followed by Linux hitting the mainstream in all industries by the middle of next year," Collins said.
BI on Linux initiatives have predominantly been on CRM, financial consolidation and activity-based costing projects, Collins said.
SAS is certainly not alone in Linux support. In fact, the other major BI vendors have also been offering a Linux option for years, Vesset said. IDC hasn't seen particular industries making the move but, surprisingly, it has tended to be the larger organizations that are doing it, Vesset said. They seem to have larger IT departments that can explore Linux as an alternative.
"It's not going to happen overnight," Vesset said. "Linux has a better chance of taking share away from Unix rather than Windows because of it's familiarity with developers."
It's really the e-mail and Web servers that are using Linux now, but applications like BI are joining in.
SAS has offered some form of Linux support for two and a half years, but Wednesday's partnership with Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys means there should be Linux 64-bit computing next year, Collins said.