“Linux holds a lot of promise, and it will bring prices down,”
says Biland of Snap-on, which is using Linux systems for E-business
applications. One of the price benefits of Linux, Biland says, is
that companies can run the operating system on a $3,000 desktop
machine instead of a Unix server costing $20,000. Snap-on built a
Linux server for its auto-dealer portal using Red Hat Software’s
Linux Secured Server for $118, he says. “We would’ve had to pay
$2,000 for a Unix license.”
“At the end of January, Sun Microsystems made the source code
for its core Java technology, Java 2 Platform Standard Edition,
available for free. Sun charged licensing fees for the source code
when it was unveiled in 1996 until December 1998, when it
introduced a Community Source License program that eliminated
licensing fees but continued to require developers to pay a royalty
for every application using Java 2 that was sold….”
“Businesses are making open-source software a standard part
of their IT portfolios. In addition to lower prices, “we can
get better products delivered more quickly from open sources,” says
David Pennington, chief systems engineer at Atlanta retailer Home
Depot Inc., which is using Java to write nearly all its
applications.”