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IDC Says Chinese Linux Market Grows

China Linux 2006-2010 Forecast and Analysis, the new research report from IDC, informs that the Chinese Linux market continues to grow, and partially at the expense of SCO. IDC`s believes that the annual growth rate for 2006 to 2010 to be 34 percent, and that revenue will climb to $51.1 million. In 2005, Linux revenues grew by 27 percent over 2004 reaching nearly $12 million. However, Linux revenues in China are still a very small part of Linux`s overall global sales, which according to IDC, were $5.7 billion in 2005 worldwide.

Linux`s 2005 growth in China is being partially driven by, "large-scale SCO Unix replacement by major banks and industrial projects, such as telecommunication and Internet cafes," according to IDC. SCO just began shipping its Open Server 6 product a few weeks ago as part of its own initiative to improve its China efforts. "SCO is an important technology provider for China because the company provides the technology infrastructure for running many of China`s largest banks and other institutions," said Tim Negris, executive vice president for worldwide sales and marketing at SCO, said in a statement.

Regardless of who actually is the leader, there is no doubt that the market for Linux in China is very competitive. "The China Linux market featured unprecedented competition in 2005, which will continue well into 2006," Nielse Jiang, Software and Services Analyst for IDC China, said in a statement. "As a direct result of such intense competition, price wars will be inevitable in 2006. Most of the public tenders closed with relatively low prices in 2005. "Keen price competition continues to serve as a major barrier to the China Linux market."