According to the VDC report, 12 percent of 428 systems developers said they're using the publicly-available Linux operating system (OS), while just 3 percent are using a commercial Linux OS. 20 percent of 368 respondents said they plan to use the public Linux OS for their next product, while just 5 percent plan to use a commercial Linux OS.

"While some OEMs have chosen to use a commercial Linux solution, more are using and/or expect to use a publicly available Linux solution in future product development," said Stephen Balacco, director of VDC's embedded software practice. "It is this trend that will continue to put pressure on commercial Linux suppliers to provide value above and beyond the growing sophistication of publicly available Linux solutions."

The report notes that Linux developers can make use of a wide range of publicly-existing device drivers, design systems using the latest communications protocols, supplement existing platforms with technology leveraged from enterprise Linux domains, and enjoy royalty-free production licensing. The migration of OEMs to "roll your own" Linux solutions is expected to increase faster than the adoption of commercial Linux solutions, especially among larger OEMs who can afford the engineering and support costs of an internal Linux solution, the report says.

The report concludes that commercial Linux suppliers will need to focus on product development and integration challenges by moving up the value chain from just supplying a Linux OS distribution to offering increased efficiency through development tools, middleware, Linux platforms and application-level solutions.

The full report is available from VDC.