“It’s a common refrain among IT managers today. For as far
as Linux has come–and the release of the Linux 2.4 kernel earlier
this month has brought a range of additional enterprise
functionality to the open-source operating system–there is still a
way to go before it becomes a true mission-critical,
enterprise-class system that can effectively compete with the Unix
and Windows platforms.”
“Michael Tiemann, chief technology officer at Linux vendor Red
Hat Inc., in Durham, N.C., summed this up recently. “While there
are many definitions of what constitutes an enterprise-class
operating system, I think it would be fair to characterize Linux as
a rookie Tiger Woods, full of potential that has yet to be
realized,” Tiemann said.”
“Greg Olson, the co-founder and chairman of Sendmail Inc., in
Emeryville, Calif., which uses an IBM Linux mainframe for
development and runs a host of Linux servers, wants more enterprise
features. Olson agrees that Linux is clearly enterprise-ready at
the server level for certain applications like e-mail, e-commerce
and Web servers, but he said it lags with regard to running other
mission-critical applications like financials and CRM.”