Companies spent $21 billion in 2007 on the Linux server platform, in hardware, software and services, said IDC. And that amount is expected to grow to $49 billion in 2011. And software expenses were at $10 billion, which is still a tiny part of the global software market, evaluated at $242 billion.

A poll on Ajaxian.com had response showing that the overwelming majority of respondents were using Open Source ajax libraries. The most popular libraties are Prototype,JQuery and Extjs. The only proprietary solution with significant response was Backbase.

Extjs' rise in popularity is impressive, as is Jquery's. Also of note is the quasi-disappearance from the responses of popular early players as xajax and Rico.

Though this poll is no scientific truth or statistically representative (open source enthousiats are more likely to visit Ajaxian than some corporate developer coding only for the money), with more than 2000 respondents it still give an idea of some trends.

Matthew Aslett from The 451 Group notes that funding in Open Source companies plunged in the last quarter of 2007: 74% down on a year-to-year basis! This results in a full year decline of 40.7% compared to 2006, which reached a peak. It is suspected that investors are looking for exit strategies before investing. Which doesn't mean getting funding is impossible, as illustrated by Acquia.

Sourceforge's Marketplace lets you buy and sell services for software you're an expert in. You can create a seller profile and start proposing services categorised and linked to projects hosted on Sourceforge. There are currently nearly 300 projects with services proposed and more than 700 service providers. Both buyers and sellers can rate the transaction, which should result in quality information about sellers and buyers.
A dedicated discussion forum is available, as is a demo.

IDC reports that Linux deployment growth has slowed dramatically to the point of reaching negative growth, making it loose market share compared to windows. The interpretation of these numbers are that the easiest migrations from Unix have now been done, and that we are entering a new stage of Linux' presence in the enterprise. Microsoft's vision is that Linux' market share will now stagnate because "Linux is primarily deployed in two workloads—high-performance computing and as Web servers". Another interpretation is that as easier Unix migrations are done, Linux vendors will have to take on Microsoft directly and compete on big ERP, CRM and databases deployments.

The Observatoire du Logiciel Libre published its latest report on the Free and Open Source software market in the enterprise, based on training organised for professionals. Although the conclusions cannot be considered as definitive because based on only one company providing trainings, the data unveiled can be used as one indicator of what is currently going on in the market.

The report is in french, but here are the trends comparing the first half of 2007 with the same period in 2006:

• The number of people trained rose 20%. The LAMP stack is still very popular, but the growth of Linux training slowed (+1% only), and the report attributed this to the arrival of Windows Server 2003.
• the trainings delivered become broader, becoming less technical, with for example trainings for SugarCRM and Jaspersoft's reporting solutions.
• Mysql, part of the LAMP stack, keeps growing with 40% more people trained
• Java is still popular, with a progression 66% more people trained
• Postgresql trainings number is stable. Postgresql seems to be used in more established companies and by specialists, relying on its most advanced features like PostGIS.
• the number of trainings delivered about OpenOffice stumbled by 80%. The report mentions that a lot of companies a getting OpenOffice directly, without trainings.

The last point would be worth further investigation: are companies really interestedin OpenOffice without trainings? Or do they have internal experts who deliver training inside the company?

Source: Toolinux