Linux is the fastest growing operating system in terms of percentage growth of new unit subscriptions as well as revenue growth, according to "Linux in the Mainstream: Growing Deployment of Business-Critical Workloads," the IDC white paper authored by Al Gillen, program vice president, system software, IDC. Moreover, Linux is moving to the core of business and is now considered a suitable candidate for deployments of business-critical workloads.

Reflecting on the growing deployment of Linux for business-critical workloads, Gillen tells LinuxLine that a big part of what has made this possible is the availability of enterprise-grade distributions of Linux, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Additionally, since 2002-2003, the hardware that customers are acquiring to deploy with their Linux operating systems has increasingly tended to be more business-oriented, he adds.

Bob Sutor, vice president of open source and Linux at IBM, and Gillen hosted a webinar yesterday titled, "Lower TCO for Business Critical Workloads with Linux and IBM." A replay will be available approximately 48 hours after the event. The IDC white paper is accessible now.