Linux vs Windows - Conquering a Windows Based World

McKesson Corp, which creates software applications for doctors’ offices and hospitals has entered into a reseller partnership with Red Hat.

This will be the first reseller agreement for Red Hat within the health care industry.This enables users to make just a single phone call and get support for the entire stack. Makes a lot of sense to me.

McKesson claims that hospitals running its software on Linux in Intel-based hardware, in general, have realized cost savings up to 60% compared with traditional system deployments. 

A school district in Ohio is opting to go with Linux rather than upgrading all of their existing systems to Windows XP. Covered in a local paper http://www.thisweeknews.com/

“For a school district, this issue is compounded by the volume of computers it has to maintain. However, Dr. Anne Hyland, director of curriculum and instruction for Bexley City Schools, said the district is switching to a new operating system that will save the taxpayers a lot of money.

Hyland said Bexley will switch all of its computers over to Linux, an open-source operating system. Open source means that the code for the software is available for anyone to procure and manipulate, unlike Microsoft operating systems.”

Would be very interesting to see how this project ultimately turns out.

European DIY retailer has migrated 240 of its stores to Redhat Linux from and existing base of NT and Unix boxes has resulted in tenfold increase in performance.

Grulois said, “We have achieved a return on our investment in less than eight months, and we continue to benefit from the advantages Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers, in terms of maintenance, cost savings and high security.”

Don’t suppose this will make the Microsoft get the facts campaign page?

The Dell IdeaStorm site which was launched on Friday , has already had 63,000 users request Linux to be pre-installed on their desktops rather than Windows.

This quote came from Ballmer at a presentation to New York financial analysts on Thusrday Feb 15.  Sounds like the Novell deal is more about litigation onslaught, than helping customers have better integration of Windows and Linux. Covered at Zdnet.uk

Ballmer said: “I would not anticipate that we make a huge additional revenue stream from our Novell deal, but I do think it clearly establishes that open source is not free, and open source will have to respect the intellectual property rights of others just as any other competitor will.” 

Suse Linux on Intel platform is the choice for the (IRD) Inland Revenue Department for its compliance driven electronic document management project. They had been using Unix for 15 years so most skills are transferable according to Huckerby, the national manager for business management services.

“Linux has been the preferred platform for new development of systems of this kind for a number of years,” Huckerby says. “Our standard operating environment lists Linux as the prime candidate for an operating system for our servers in the mid- and network-tiers of our architecture — where the electronic records and document management system sits,” she says.

An open letter was published by Microsoft that chides IBM for restricting users choice by their support of the ODF (Open Document Format). Here is the quote and link straight from Microsoft.

“The IBM driven effort to force ODF on users through public procurement mandates is a further attempt to restrict choice. In XML-based file formats, which can easily interoperate through translators and be implemented side by side in productivity software, this exclusivity makes no sense – except to those who lack confidence in their ability to compete in the marketplace on the technical merits of their alternative standard. This campaign to limit choice and force their single standard on consumers should be resisted. “

Obviously, Microsoft is about choice and open standards. Everyone knows this! Just a little ironic, huh?

EBS, the fifth largest retail credit institution in Ireland is standardizing on IBM Z-servers and Suse Linux to reduce its physical server count, management, and licensing fees.  This is covered in a Novell press release.

“By running new applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on the mainframe, we have avoided buying several additional mid-range servers and implementing all the associated physical networking,” said Nicholls. “With the CICS transactions, WebSphere and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server systems all running on the same physical server, we have a single point of control which helps to reduce the total IT management workload.” 

From the article they are also going to leverage the IBM hardware by using Virtual Servers.

Brazil has already deployed 50,000 Linux desktops with an additional estimated deployment of about 10,000 a month. Sounds like it pretty widespread movement throughout the government as quoted from the article.

“The program is supported by a number of Brazilian organizations, including the Ministry of Cities, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of the Development of the Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Education, and many others, according to Enabled People. “

Is Vista finally the big misstep that will enable Linux to penetrate the Desktop market?

IBM is releasing a client side desktop application suite that will run on Windows, Apple, Redhat, and Novell Linux Distributions, at a time when CIO and IT managers are trying to decide whether to upgrade to Windows Vista.

“IBM Lotus chief marketing officer Antony Satyadas told SearchOpenSource.com that Open Client was meant for customers whose environments run the gamut from 100% Linux to heterogeneous mixes of Windows and open source.”