“Forget about whether the Fortune 1,000 is interested in
Linux. Try the Fortune One. General Motors Corp., the largest
corporation in the U.S., is reviewing Linux to run the order
management applications at GM’s approximately 7,500 North American
dealerships.”
“…David E. Hutka, operations manager of GM Access, the
dealership network, told Computerworld senior writer David
Orenstein that the automaker is considering a move from Windows to
Linux only because of how much the Microsoft Corp. operating system
taxes server hardware.”
“Q: Why Linux?
A: Our main problem today is not the operating system;
it’s the hardware and the infrastructure. We are looking at
replacing the server in each dealership. While we are doing that,
do we also change the operating system? We’ve got applications
banging on the door to get in but … we don’t have the hard disk
space. It’s been reported that Linux is stable and has low support
costs, and it has a small footprint on the hard disk and memory.
The (fewer) resources the operating system takes up, the more you
can do with your applications. Linux has no licensing issues.”