Time to try Linux

SME IT/ COST CUTTING

Vendors now pre-install Linux on PCs to cut costs.

Regardless of whether you belong to a big or small-and medium-enterprise (SME), you would have heard of 'Linux'. It's a free operating system (OS) as opposed to Microsoft Windows or Vista. This means you can install it on your desktop or server and reduce your operation costs. Microsoft counters this line of thinking by saying that the total cost of ownership (TCO) of its OS is lower than that of Linux. The open source community that promotes Linux pooh-poohs this argument with its own findings.

As the arguments go on ad nauseum, one fact remains: Linux is robust, steady, virus-free to a great extent and most importantly, FREE. Which means you can download it from the Internet or get companies like Red Hat and Novell (in India) to install it on your machines and provide maintenance services for a nominal fee.

Linux on the desktop is not as popular as Linux on the server. Overall, a mere 3 per cent of users would have installed Linux on their desktops. The primary reason is that Linux as an OS is a little difficult to use, especially if you've been used to a Windows environment for a long time. For new users, it would hardly matter. Moreover, the argument that Linux does not have adequate support and lacks drivers for audio, video and gaming hardly holds water any longer. Besides, for most SMEs, these features would hardly matter.

And things are changing. Vendors have started pre-installing Linux on PCs to bring down costs. This should help in increasing the penetration of Linux desktops and laptops. On the server front, however, Linux is a potent force. In fact, it has a nearly 22 per cent market share "" which is stiff competition to Microsoft and Unix OS(es) on servers. Major firms and institutions like the LIC of India, IDBI, IndiaBulls and HDFC use Linux on the servers, for "mission-critical" applications too.

In most cases, the implementation of Linux in Indian enterprises is by Red Hat (primarily since Red Hat Linux has been popularised by the media and offers support for Linux which, being open source, can be downloaded for free and has no upfront licensing fee). Novell is the other leading Linux vendor. However, if one has an in-house IT maintenance department, one can choose from the hundreds of other Linux distributions "" Mandriva, Debian, Suse,PCLinuxOS, Knoppix and Ubuntu to name a few "" for desktops and enterprises.

Based on the price, vendors classify servers as small (anywhere from Rs 30,000 up to Rs 5 lakh), medium (from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 1 crore) and large (over Rs 1 crore). They are identified as Intel (or X86 processor-based), Unix (or non-X86 processor-based) and blade servers. Linux and Solaris are flavours of Unix. Windows and Intel form the loosely-termed "Wintel" brand.

Linux today has gained the support of corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Novell, and is used as an operating system for a wide variety of computer hardware, including desktop computers, supercomputers, and embedded devices such as mobile phones and routers.

In India, besides major firms, state governments in Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra too have started using Linux in a bid to promote "open-source" environments. All these measures suggest that Linux OS will see a surge; a natural corollary is that there will be a lot more support for it. It's time SMEs picked up the cue.

The author is Editor (IT) at Business Standard