Linux vs Windows - Conquering a Windows Based World

Paypal can currently processes nearly $1,571 worth of transactions per second in 17 different countries on 4,000 Redhat Linux Servers.  Not surprisingly, the ability to perform incremental growth by adding additional Intel based servers rather than mainframe step increases tends to keep costs in the thousands and not millions.

“Thompson supervises a payment system that operates on about 4,000 servers running Red Hat Linux in the same manner that eBay and Google conduct their business on top of a grid of Linux servers. “I have been pleasantly surprised at how much we’ve been able to do with this approach. It operates like a mainframe,” he said. “

The mainframe will never be replaced, as new tasks and jobs always seem to find their way onto them.  Nonetheless, it is interesting to see Linux based grid servers providing a clear advantage in certain environments.

Bahrain will be working with IBM and Gulf Business Machines (GBM) to unify its government’s infrastructure and provide services to its citizens using secure hardware, and software  platforms.  It will be based on Linux.

“Standards based technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for modernisation throughout society in our country. The pioneering vision of the Government of Bahrain is dedicated to ensuring that the Kindgom is at the forefront of developing technology and in driving services for our citizens with flexibility and accessibility to government services,” said Shaikh Ahmed Ateyatalla Al Khalifa, Undersecretary of the CIO.

The project will integrate several back-end systems and support the introduction of national card system that will give citizens access to information, services, and government facilities.

The Google phone will not be hardware, but in fact an open source mobile Linux OS. It is built on the open Linux Kernel. It will be a complete set of software for mobile devices along with a (Software Developer Kit) SDK that will be released November 12.

What is amazing is now we could see a boom in handset functionality and features that would have never been possible before. In fact, it brings the technology to the developers and removes the control from the big carriers and phone manufacturers. I don’t believe that any company other then Google could have pulled it off.

“Android breaks down the barriers to building new and innovative applications. For example, a developer can combine information from the web with data on an individual’s mobile phone — such as the user’s contacts, calendar, or geographic location — to provide a more relevant user experience. “