By Philip A.
Carinhas
Fortuitous Technologies
[ The opinions expressed by authors on Linux Today are their
own. They speak only for themselves and not for Linux Today.
]
Several countries have announced that they have officially
selected Linux as their operating system (OS) of choice, including
Mexico and China. Japanese and French industry have all but
endorsed Linux nationwide as well. These countries hope to save
millions in costs by embracing the Open Source philosophy and to
remove the OS stranglehold Microsoft has maintained for the last
decade.
Mexico last year announced
that they have chosen Red Hat Linux as their OS choice for all
their elementary and middle school computers. This is estimated to
be over 150,000 computers nationwide and could have lasting
implications for further OS selection in that country. Several
other Latin American countries are expected to make similar
commitments.
China has also knighted Linux as their “Official Operating
System”. This decision covers all Chinese universities, military
installations, and government. China’s enthusiasm
and confidence in the once renegade Linux OS is well founded.
The decision to use Linux is expected to save China billions of
dollars in the long term and coincides with recent
announcements by GraphOn Corp. to provide Linux servers to the
Chinese private enterprise, education, military, and government
sectors. As China boasts a population of over one billion, this is
indeed a big deal.
The U.S. commercial sector has also given Linux the green light.
Among the large commercial PC vendors, Compaq, HP, IBM, Dell,
Toshiba, Hitachi, NEC, and SGI sell pre-installed Linux servers,
while Motorola has announced
their roll out of embedded telecommunication and Internet products
for Linux.
Recently, the semi-privatized French TelCo France
Telecom has chosen Debian Linux as part of a program to
partially upgrade their aging
infrastructure. . Debian GNU/Linux, Apache, PostrgreSQL, Perl,
and PHP are purported to be integral parts of the program.
Germany has meanwhile been a loyal friend to Linux and many
companies there use it on an increasing basis. It’s reported that
20 percent of all Siemens workstations are pre-installed with
Linux. The Mercedes electronics prototype group is happy with their
new 30 Linux workstations and have 10 more on the way. Even the
Stuttgart Police now use Linux because of its high reliability.
Japanese industry has been a powerful Linux ally as well, with
recent moves involving Oracle Japan, Fujitsu, and others.
Oracle Japan recently decided to support Linux on their Oracle8
series, boost their Linux support partners, and migrate their
current users away from Windows NT. Fujitsu Ltd. also broke new
ground by announcing Linux support for their TeamWARE Office
5.3.
Recent news reports indicate that Hitachi, NEC, Compaq
KK, Fujitsu, and IBM Japan Ltd. all offer Linux systems and/or
software on an ongoing basis. The icing on the cake — TurboLinux
(a popular Linux distribution) claims to be the number one OS in
Japan in terms of units sold.
Elsewhere, Compaq Australia reports 45
percent of servers there use Linux and have redoubled their efforts
to support the OS.
The bottom line is clear: Linux has made it to the big time and
is undeniably getting the global recognition and respect it
deserves.
Phil Carinhas is the president and Linux instructor
for Fortuitous Technologies. He can be reached at pac@fortuitous.com).
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Inc.