This IDC white paper looks at the transition that today's datacenters have to move through to adapt to and leverage the changing technologies that will be the underpinnings of tomorrow's compute paradigm. This transition includes the standardization of infrastructure software, the commoditization and standardization of hardware layers, and the changing programming model that customers will utilize for next-generation applications. This IDC white paper looks at Linux as an enabler to help organizations respond to and leverage these changing paradigms.