Ralph Piche

Faced with a growing number of viruses hitting his network, small businessman Ralph Piche decided to switch to a Linux-based operating system for his desktop, rather than upgrade to the latest Windows offering.

By doing so, the president of Webcrew.ca joined a growing number of users looking to a Linux-based platform as an alternative to the Microsoft gorilla.

"I haven't experienced a virus in about a year and that's one of the potential downsides that I simply don't worry about anymore," said Mr. Piche.

"I have virtually no time taken up by anti-virus updates and security patches. There are some updates with Linux, but it's not the weekly updates of everything because of a new virus coming out that you often get with Windows."

An attack that destroyed countless valuable files finally pushed Mr. Piche to move to a Linux system, even though he found it lacked technical support.

As Linux gains market share, some pundits predict hackers will begin to target it with worms, Trojans and other viruses as they shift their focus to the open source world.

But Mr. Piche feels the popularity of Linux on the server side hasn't elicited attention from hackers yet and might be a sign they are just not interested.

"The Apache web server is more popular than the IAS Windows server and yet the majority of the attacks target IAS, so I don't think it's true that we will see more attacks against Linux servers," he said.

"I also think the way Linux handles users is generally a little more robust in that not everything is tied into the core operating system."

While Mr. Piche is a steadfast Linux convert, Chris Ellsay, president of IT outfit Workshift.com, isn't convinced. He feels Linux applications and servers aren't worth the hassle and doesn't recommend them to clients.

"It's a ridiculous idea for small business because you can buy a PC that already comes with an operating system and, for an extra $200, you get Microsoft Office already installed and ready to go. And you know when you have a problem, you can make a call and it will be fixed," he said.

"As a small business owner, you have to be so ruthless about your time and stay focused on what you do to make money that saving $200 on a PC is simply a waste of money."

A 2003 study by Gartner Research found that migrating PC desktops to Linux should be considered in cases where there are applications that are fixed-function or low-function, such as data entry, call centre or bank teller/platform automation. In those cases, the cost of migration might be low enough to justify the move to Linux.

"Many servers are dedicated to running a single application; in many cases, it has been relatively easy for enterprises to replace specific servers, such as a web server, and implement Linux," said Gartner vice-president David Smith.

"The environment for Linux on the desktop is significantly different. Knowledge workers use PCs to run diverse combinations of applications. For those users, migration costs will be very high because all Windows applications must be replaced or rewritten."

On the server side, Mr. Ellsay said the convenience of the Windows-based offerings gives small businesses productivity out of the box, without any of the trouble-shooting problems associated with Linux.

While it's not exactly pushing Microsoft into bankruptcy protection, Linux continues to take a bite out of the server and desktop market, as the open source offering gains wider acceptance in the marketplace.

Linux developers offer similar software to the basic Windows-based offerings, which are often available as free downloads from the Internet, something that helps keep licensing costs to a minimum.

"When I switched, I simply couldn't afford to purchase all the copies of Windows I needed along with all the software, so financial reasons were a large part of it, but I was also tired of being locked into the upgrades and being forced to do it on somebody else's cycle. I just decided to try a change," Mr. Piche said.

"I calculated that, with Linux, not upgrading an old machine would save me about $1,200 and the cost of running the machine is about the same or slightly less."

While certain hardware drivers aren't available for Linux, its growing popularity has all the major manufacturers developing products for the open source world.

Giants such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems continue to leverage Linux as they try to wrestle market share from competitors.

Linux is gaining ground in the enterprise server market, according to a June study by Forrester Research that found Linux widely used by one-quarter of the 129 companies it surveyed with annual revenues exceeding $500 million. Almost half of those companies expected to move some of their server stable to Linux in the next three years.

To put it in perspective, Linux ran third in operating systems, while nine in 10 of the companies surveyed also used Windows for servers and 43 per cent ran Sun's Solaris.

Another study done in 2001 by Cybersource found that Linux saved a 250-person organization roughly $500,000 over three years, whether new hardware and infrastructure was purchased or the existing set-up was used.

While the open source model may push some costs down, Linux may not be cheaper to run in all cases. Research by IDC found that less than one-third of the total cost of platform ownership was related to software, while about 70 per cent went to the propeller heads running the system.

"The cost of the software is not the expensive part and those savings can disappear in no time, it's the staff time to learn how to install, debug and find applications to work on it," Mr. Ellsay said.

"It makes sense if you are an Internet service provider and you want an inexpensive hosting platform or you're a developer and you need a specific use for testing or development. It's great for that stuff."

That's why Mr. Ellsay contends that the cost savings realized at the front end will quickly disappear from the bottom line once the system is up and running, especially if it encounters problems.

When it comes to the bigger picture, Mr. Ellsay said both Linux and Windows are on their way out and future developments in software will move toward a more centralized model where users access applications through dummy terminals connected to servers.

"The problem is that we are going to miss it altogether, but we are moving back toward the old model where we had everything on the mainframe and we've seen it with the Internet. I don't install my banking software on desktop anymore because I use my web browser," he said.

"Where Linux may end up shining is in dummy terminals, where you use one application to contact many other applications and that's where the world will go. It won't take off in the way we know now as a replacement for the Windows desktop, but that's dying and will be replaced by dummy terminals."

By Jeff Pappone

special to the Ottawa Business Journal