Ubuntu Server Survey 2010 released

We are ready to release the report on the server survey, the information for which was gathered at the tail end of 2009 by the server community in collaboration with Canonical.

The survey contained a vast array of questions, many of which were general and many others user-prompted depending on previous response. We are grateful to the nearly 3000 respondents for spending the 20-30 minutes required.

We use the survey to get a temperature check on what’s going on in the Ubuntu server user community. It is an imperfect polling method (basically self-selecting, survey in English only, etc) so we neither read it nor present it as a definitive statement either on what people use Ubuntu Server for, or what they want from Ubuntu Server.

But, it sure is useful at showing trends.

Personally, I think it is a great insight into why Ubuntu Server Edition is gaining significant market share in the server market by identifying how users are looking for an open source OS for volume operations and therefore how Ubuntu Server is meeting that need. It validates many of the technology choices by Canonical and the community and it give proof of the popularity of the Long Term Support model, important in the run up to the new LTS release on April 29th. The section on cloud computing provides some real data in the nebulous world of ‘cloud,’ giving users a voice for their concerns and for their readiness to engage with the cloud – and showing the early adoption of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud as a potential solution.

A word also on the report itself. For readability and broad interest the report is a highly-edited version of the survey (although no actual responses are changed). All the responses are available to the leaders of the server community and sharable at their discretion. Frankly an unvarnished 150 page data output might have the merit of completeness, but it would certainly be at the expense of comprehensibility. The interpretation is intended to be fair, balanced and accurate but it is, of course, the view of the authors’ and therefore can only ever be an interpretation of the figures. Readers are encouraged to draw their own conclusion from the same figures. The Register published some interesting observations on the survey earlier today.

Gerry Carr
Head of Platform Marketing