Does Linux Benefit from Hard Times?
If Walmart is looking for another product to add to its Great Value range, perhaps it should look no further than Linux. When the economy takes a dive there are always plenty of casualties in the marketplace, and classical economic theory tells us that expensive goods suffer the most. When the going gets tough, consumers substitute lower-cost alternatives. But that doesn’t mean they have to compromise on quality. Just because a product has a premium brand and commands a higher price doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. You can pay five times as much for a packet of Tylenol as you would for generic acetaminophen, but either will get rid of a headache equally well. So it’s not surprising that 65 percent of IT professionals recently polled by IDC said they plan to increase Linux server workloads by 10 percent or more this year. IDC carried out the poll for Novell, and the draft results were reported in InformationWeek. Another thing IDC’s poll found was that “forty-nine percent [of respo
