Sun Microsystems  announced the results of a regional survey that shows 44 percent of all large and medium-sized companies in the Nordic and Benelux countries are using open source software (OSS). The survey was conducted by the international market research company TNS Gallup, on behalf of Sun.

According to the TNS Gallup survey, 46 percent of all Nordic organizations use OSS today, compared to 41 percent in the Benelux region. Finland is on top of the list of OSS usage with 54 percent. The survey also shows that deployment of open source should increase within the next two years – with one-third of the CIOs using open source today say they plan to increase their OSS within two years. 23 percent of CIOs in the Nordic countries who have not yet deployed open source software state that they plan to do so within two years, in comparison to 25 percent in the Benelux countries. Large companies use open source to a greater extent than medium-sized companies.

Additionally, more than half of the companies in the Nordic and Benelux regions use open source in both critical and non-critical applications. Of the organizations that use open source today, 49 percent of the organizations in the Nordic region use Sun’s MySQL database. This places the Nordic region ahead of the Benelux countries, where 43 percent of the companies have adopted MySQL.

"We believe that the increased demand for open source in general and MySQL in particular is driven largely by the global economic downturn," says Magnus Stenberg, MySQL Sales Manager for Nordic's & Benelux region at Sun Microsystems. "This survey shows that CIOs highly prioritize cost savings, reliability and ease of use -- a major reason why 46 percent of the companies in the Nordic and Benelux countries use MySQL for database management."

The countries included in the survey are Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The results are based on interviews with 310 CIO’s and IT-managers (50 in each country, 10 in the Luxembourg). The 500 largest companies within the private and public sectors were selected in each country, except for Luxembourg where the base of large and medium companies was low. Consequently, the 70 largest companies in Luxembourg were selected and 10 interviews were conducted.

Research results in brief:

• 44 percent of organizations in the Nordic and Benelux regions use open source software in their IT infrastructure. The country with the highest usage of OSS is Finland, with 54 percent.
• 46 percent of Nordic organizations use OSS compared to 41 percent in Benelux.
• One third of the CIOs using open source today plan to increase theirOSS usage within two years. 23 percent of the CIOs in the Nordics who have not deployed open source today state that they plan to do so within two years, in comparison with 25 percent in the Benelux countries.
• 55 percent are using OSS for both critical and non-critical projects.
• The use of MySQL is higher among larger companies with more than 2,000 employees.