“The electronic commerce market segment is the latest convert to
the open source movement, and vendors at the LinuxWorld expo
launched a bevy of products… …Magic Software launched the Linux
version of its eMerchant business-to-business electronic commerce
solution; OpenSales previewed the beta version of its OpenMerchant
software; and Red Hat showed its Apache-based E-Commerce Server
(launched in July).”
“…companies such as IBM, Oracle, and BEA demonstrated their
enterprise electronic-commerce-enabled application-server
technology on the Linux platform, while Hewlett-Packard previewed
the beta version of its new E-speak Internet services
platform.”
“While Apache is undoubtedly one of the most widely
used Web servers… many argue that it’s not quite ready for the
electronic commerce space because it lacks much of the
transaction and enterprise-integration features needed to carry out
industrial-strength commerce over the Web.
However, [Atension VP of engineering Dan] Cornell, who has
designed e-commerce sites such as Ties.com and baseballexp.com,
believes that this will soon change as companies such as
IBM, BEA, and Oracle provide Linux solutions from the top down and
the grassroots Linux developers work from the ground up.”