In 2019, IDC published a white paper1 on the economic footprint of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the costs saving and revenue enhancement advantages using RHEL offered to customers over other versions of Linux, and the size and force of the ecosystem supporting RHEL implementations.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic came online and remains with us.
As IDC has tracked the impact of COVID-19 on information technology (IT) users and vendors, much has changed. The migration to cloud computing accelerated in comparison to on-premises software, organizations were forced to accelerate digital transformation plans to adapt to rapidly changing customer needs, and the migration to remote work does not seem likely to revert to pre-pandemic levels any time soon, if ever. That opened up a new question: As the IT market and global economy has shifted dramatically, how has that changed the impact and influence of RHEL?
So, with a new survey, updated market tracking forecasts, and updated global economic forecasts, we revisit and update our previous document now.