“A year ago, when Ernest Pecounis said he wanted to bring Linux
into the state agency he works for, there was a swell of laughter
from his colleagues. Guess who’s laughing now.”
“Pecounis, a database administrator in Raleigh, N.C., was
recently given the green light to test Linux at the North Carolina
Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The decision will
be made by year’s end whether or not to allow Linux into the
network running as a database server.”
“What’s got Pecounis’ bosses willing to look at Linux? The flood
of new, high-profile backing for the open-source operating system
from major vendors such as Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM and Dell
Computer Corp. Now that Linux is finally on these companies’ radar
screens, however, it’s up to IT managers such as Pecounis to answer
one important question: How close is Linux, really, to being ready
to run mission-critical applications?”
“The answer, according to many IT managers and experts, is that
Linux is close, but it’s not there yet. It still needs a strong
support infrastructure, the backing of enterprise application
vendors and an easy-to-use GUI at the desktop before it’s ready to
either compete with Unix and Windows NT on the server or appeal to
the typical end user.”