FY 08 was a year of mixed emotions for Open Source supporters. On one hand, the Open Document Format (ODF) faction lost out a crucial battle to Microsoft-backed Open XML as an ISO document standard. On the other, Linux continued seeing increase in adoption, especially by the government and telecom sectors.

Low cost of ownership, no security threats from virus attacks and no piracy related issues, took Linux adoption in the government sector from one success story to another. While FY 07 saw the southern states led by Kerala adopting Linux in critical applications, in this fiscal it was the turn of the various government departments. Whether it was the Supreme Court promoted e-courts project or e-posts launched by the Department of Posts.

And it was not just the Indian government that was all gung-ho about Linux. According to Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat, it appears that governments of South Korea, Japan, Australia, and China too are becoming the positive spokespeople for Linux.

With most enterprises using Linux for their back-end infrastructure, Linux is all-pervasive in the enterprise. Googles Gmail uses Linux for its back-end infrastructure.

Wary of data security threats and piracy-related issues, most major telecom players have chosen Linux for running mission critical applications. But its not just the Indian telecos, neighboring Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN) too has gone in for Open Source and has signed a MoU with Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) to implement open source software in all telecenters across the country

The year also saw completion of the first year of the controversial Novell-Microsoft deal, which Linux supporters had termed blasphemous. However, the deal seems to have been a blessing in disguise for Novell considering that the company managed to add some big names like BMW, Walmart, and Deutsche Bank to its kitty.

Government Runs on Linux
Most of the central governments governance projects have chosen Linux including Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan promoted by the Ministry of HRD and e-post by the Department of Posts.

For bringing in transparency in financial transactions, budget monitoring, expenditures, and financial statements, an application developed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Jboss was used Linux.

The e-post application developed by NIC is developed on RHEL & JBoss. The Supreme Court meanwhile has undertaken the e-courts project in an effort to computerize all district and sessions courts. NIC has provided laptops to 12,155 judges across the country, which run the Red Hat Linux desktop.

CDAC Mumbai has also used Linux in the development of the National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway.

Taking a cue from the Kerala government, the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu too had given up Microsofts Windows in favor of Novells SUSE Linux two years back.

Enterprises Keen Too
Taking over from BFSI, the telecom vertical is now increasingly opting for Linux when it comes to running critical applications. One of the newest entrants in the Indian telecom sector, Virgin Mobile, is using Linux for its VAS applications. VSNL has adopted Linux for managed services, and Reliance ADA in its data center, entertainment, and capital business.

Media too seems to have taken a liking to Linux. HT Media group, looking to upgrade its SAP environment to enable it to cope with business expansion, chose the full SAO for media solutions including advertising and circulation management modules, and integrated it closely into its existing editorial and page planning systems. The company opted to run the SAP applications on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The Indian Express group also used Linux for SAP deployment.

The Center for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) developed the unreserved ticketing system (UTS) that was integrated and centrally manageable, and allowed passengers a lot of flexibility. The UTS solution is based on a three-tier architecture built on open standards. The fist tier was the Indian Railways central server. The second consisted of the servers at the zone headquarters and stations. And the third, dumb terminals and thin clients at the ticket generation points (ticket counters).

Going Ahead
From pay-per-use model to virtualization to expanding its offerings beyond operating systems, Red Hat India is now trying to take on different roles to beat its competitors at the enterprise game. Red Hat is expecting a 50% growth coming from the telecom and government verticals.

FY 09 will however see increased competition in the open source market with the entry of Ubuntu, one of the youngest Linux distributors. While the other two are focused on the enterprise business, Ubuntu will be targeting desktop users. Ubuntu has tied up with Dell for installing pre-loaded Linux in desktops.

Novell too, for meeting the increasing demand for Linux on client systems, has tied up with Micro-Star International for pre-installing SUSE Linux Enterprise desktop 10 on its low-cost mini-notebooks.

With Indian enterprises maturing in Linux adoption, the time is now ripe for the Linux players to target the till now neglected desktop users. Increasing demand from client systems for Linux OS means that PC vendors will now have to pre-install Linux. Klaus Knopper, founder of Knoppix rightly said: If you are going to buy any hardware and it doesnt support open source, tell the vendor, and return the product. Vendor companies will get the message. If enough people do that, they will stop manufacturing what doesnt sell.

Stuti Das
stutid@cybermedia.co.in

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