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Clocking over 100% y-o-y growth, specialist vendors like RedHat have worked towards making mission-critical Linux deployments possible. The vast benefits of open source computing in an enterprise environment where cost-effective performance is absolutely critical, will come home, affirms Javed Tapia, director, Red Hat India, in a conversation with Ravi Menon of Dataquest:

Right now, who are the heaviest enterprise investors in Linux in India?
Linux can be adopted across segments-government, enterprise and education. In India, we have seen large scale adoptions in government and the BFSI segment. Some of Linux customers include IDBI Bank, Maharashtra Land Records, BSNL, Indian Railways Catering & Tourism Corporation, Eveready Industries and UTI Bank.

Our estimates suggest that annually, 25% of servers shipped in India run on Linux. We expect this to go up to 30% in the coming two years. Similarly, of the total desktops shipped annually, over 2 lakh run on the Linux operating system. We expect this number to double in the next two years.

How should firms refine their vendor selection criteria to benefit from lower-cost open source solutions?
Once an enterprise decides to use open source technology, the CIO needs to evaluate the vendor on the following parameters-commitment to open source software and platform, industry relationship with OEM and ISV vendors, ability to provide direction and vision for adoption and co-existence of applications. The vendor should also have the ability to scale up, financial strength, and industry acceptance, not to mention, ability to provide services encompassing all the enterprise needs like consulting, implementation, engineering and training. Obviously, the key differential while evaluating adoption of open source software is that the service provider is more important than the products. Enterprises require comprehensive technology integration. All the pieces need to fit.

A Microsoft-sponsored BearingPoint study in May 2004 said that Windows Server 2003 is less expensive than commercial versions of Linux. Your take.
Well, this TCO study used Microsoft pricing that was discounted 80% from list price. Is this really the typical discount that business customers can expect to receive from Microsoft?

Besides, these studies don't include savings from the ability to consolidate servers that the superior performance and stability of Linux offers over Windows. Typical migrations have shown that applications that required multiple Windows servers to operate could be consolidated onto fewer Linux servers.

And, these studies don't include the savings from reduced administration costs in supporting a Linux server environment as opposed to a Windows environment.

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