The Open Source Census today released some great results after six months of collecting data. A few highlights:
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Government and financial services companies show the highest use of open source per machine scanned. On average, government agencies have 123 different open source packages installed per machine; financial services companies have 117 different packages installed per machine.
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Europe shows the highest usage of open source, with the United States lagging behind. For example, the U.S. averages 51 open source packages per machine and Europe averages 68 packages per machine.
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OpenOffice has been found on 73 percent of personal machines scanned vs. 28 percent of enterprise machines scanned.
Once again the numbers confirm Europe's leadership in Open Source adoption versus the US.
The OpenOffice number is fascinating. One of the technology trends of the last 10 years is the "Consumerization of the enterprise." That is, consumer technology being adopted by the enterprise. Traditionally enterprise technologies trickled down in some form to consumers. In the last 10 years that trend has completely reversed and new technology adoption has become consumer driven and new technologies have been "pushed" into the enterprise by users. One has to believe that the imbalance of OpenOffice appearing on 73% of personal machines versus 28% of enterprise machines is something that will have to correct. The pressure to adopt OpenOffice in the enterprise has to be mounting.
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