Penguin mania – what the fuss is all about

IF YOU have been following the technology press recently, you can’t help but notice all the attention the open source, freely- adaptable Linux operating system is getting, and that is primarily because the non- proprietary operating system can save you a lot of money while improving productivity.

For countries with a strong manufacturing base, such as China, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia, Linux offers an operating system free of licensing fees and with full control over the source code.

There is also potential for research and development into embedded Linux applications in the region, which can be used to power electronics devices such as video recorders, mobile phones and network routers.

This is why Matsushita Electric, Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sharp and Toshiba formed the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum consortium in July to adapt the operating system to offer snappy performance for use in digital video recorders – which capture TV programmes and store them on a hard drive for later viewing – and other audiovisual devices.

The open-source movement is moving fast in Asia. China, Japan and South Korea have long endorsed Linux, and in March, they formed an alliance to fine-tune it and develop related applications.

Japanese authorities may consider switching to Linux during their next information technology (IT) systems upgrade in 2005, a move which is expected to slash maintenance costs by half for government IT systems.

The Taiwan Government is said to be planning to start an open- source project that could save it as much as US$295 million (US$1 = RM3.80) in software royalty payments it is currently paying.

Officials in India’s IT Department in New Delhi disclosed details of a move called the Linux India Initiative last year, while in China, Linux has already made inroads into a slew of government ministries such as the National Ministry of Science, the Ministry of Statistics and the National Labor Unit.

Two years ago, China’s Beijing municipal government awarded six software contracts to vendors, including a deal for 2,000 desktop operating system seats to Red Flag Linux, a state-linked Linux developer. Funded by the Chinese Government, the Beijing Municipal Government Commission for Science and Technology launched the “Yangfan” project – a coordinated effort by software engineers from 18 universities, research institutes, and Linux companies to improve Linux desktop performance and language support.

China’s post office is also using Linux systems. Germany recently started standardising public administration operations on Linux to give corporate and government users a way to avoid rigid licensing agreements and the Infocomm-Development Authority of Singapore (IDC), the country’s technology industry regulator, has included Linux as an option for server operating systems for government tenders and contracts. While in Malaysia, the Association of the Computer & Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom) is pushing for government open-source preference for public tenders and tax deductions for open-source utilisation.

A survey of IT managers concluded in March this year across 12 Asia- Pacific countries revealed that while Linux is installed on just 6 per cent of servers today, 2003 expects to see a 24 per cent growth. Industry analysts Evans Data Corp, Forrester Research and IDC are variously predicting that Linux adoption will explode in data centres, that the majority of operating systems programming in the coming year will be on Linux, and that Linux will surpass Windows as the dominant server platform by 2006.

So what’s all the fuss about?

With economies still struggling and corporate spending under pressure, companies and government agencies are looking to squeeze more for less out of data centres brimming with expensive hardware and software.

Linux is the fastest growing initiative in the market today because it helps them meet these challenges effectively, from both cost and performance perspective

Previously, the challenge for Open Source and Linux advocates was the dominance of core business systems that now run on Microsoft Windows platforms. Many Unix and Linux advocates promoted the idea of replacing these systems with Linux, because it works on almost any hardware including Intel chips, Unix processors, even Apple hardware, and can be easily adapted to specific tasks.

Linux is maturing faster than any operating system in history, and is now being taken up in corporate data centres where serious computing takes place, because it promises to boost IT productivity and save money.

For example, when investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein started switching to Linux in 1999, it did so to save money. The Germany-based bank sought a less-costly way to calculate risks associated with its investment portfolio. So it replaced 32 computer servers based on Unix operating systems at an average cost of US$50,000 each, with 40 Linux servers at US$3,000 each.

Then Dresdner discovered that Linux was not only cheaper but also faster. The Unix servers took 17 hours to calculate how much cash the bank needed in reserve to offset its investment risk. The Linux servers made the same calculation in 11 minutes. With a better and more frequent handle on its finances, the bank could shift tens of millions of dollars from its reserve account to active investments.

Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse First Boston and others are scoring results like Dresdner’s with Linux pilot projects. And Reuters is deploying Linux servers to process the data and news widely used on Wall Street to make real-time trading decisions.

The other reason why Linux momentum is building now, is because computer and software makers are increasingly making their products Linux-ready by extending their software to make Linux an easier to manage and run, option for customers.

The writer is chairman of the open source special interest group of Pikom and managing director, Asean, for net business solutions company Novell Inc.