According to the information collected by the State Statistical Office of the Republic of Macedonia, the use of open source software in 2010 and 2011 has increased in the private sector (small, medium and large enterprises) and in the public sector (ministries, agencies, public enterprises and local self-government).
In 2010, the use of a ‘free (open source) operating system, eg. Linux’ in the private sector was 11%, with а significant difference between the use of these systems in small companies (up to 50 employees) where its use was 8.7%, and large companies (more than 250 employees) where the use was 28%. According to the class of the type of activity in the National classification of activities, leading companies are the ones dealing with “Financial mediation” (classes 65, 66, 67) and “Business activities” (classes 70-74). There is no specific data in this report related to the ICT sector.
The survey of the State Statistical Office is more comprehensive in 2011. Aside from data about the use of an “operating system eg. Linux”, where according to the data a growth of 10 percentage points has been noticed (average is 22.2% for the whole private sector – and all the groups according to the size of the entities have approximately the same use of 21-23%), the research also includes data on the use of other free software. Thus, ‘internet browsing software, eg. Mozilla Firefox’ is used by 63.3% of the companies (57.1% small, 66.1 medium and 78.6 large companies) whereas ‘Office software eg. OpenOffice’ is used by 34.6% of the companies (34.2%, 31.6% and 50.6% respectively). According to activities, the greatest use of an ‘Open Source operating system eg. Linux’ is noted in the “Information and communications” segment where 65.3% of the entities are using this operating system, followed by “Financial activities” with 51.6% and “ICT sector” with 58.1. The ‘Construction’ segment has the smallest percent of entities using this system – 18.8%.
In the 2012 survey, data has not been collected about the use of free software by businesses.
According to the survey conducted in 2009 in the public sector, 16.9 percent of the entities were using an ‘open source operating system, eg. Linux’. Divided into groups, 33.3% of the ministries were using this operating system, and the use by other entities was 13-16%.
The usage has been increased by 8 percentage points in 2011. The use of an ‘operating system, eg. Linux’ is 25% and there is little difference between the central and local government. An insignificant difference between the local and central government also exists when it comes to the use of ‘internet browsing software, eg. Mozilla, Firefox, Chrome’ with a high 91.5 percent by all entities in this sector. The percentage of entities using ‘Office software, eg OpenOffice’ is also high – 63.6% of all entities are using this type of software.
For detailed information, please see the official announcements of the State Statistical Office at:
http://www.stat.gov.mk/PrethodniSoopstenijaOblast.aspx?id=97&rbrObl=27
http://www.stat.gov.mk/PrethodniSoopstenijaOblast.aspx?id=76&rbrObl=27
