Wall Street becoming Linux stronghold
“There’s a strong business case for Linux as an alternative to Microsoft or Unix derivatives,” said Roger Levy, senior vice president and general manager of open platform solutions at Novell, which late last year released what it calls SUSE Enterprise Real Time 10 specifically for use in organizations that have millions or billions of dollars at stake based on how quickly they can complete trades.
Red Hat, which last month celebrated news that the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and its international subsidiaries were adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux and dumping Sun’s Solaris, also has a Real-Time Linux version. Its Red Hat Enterprise MRG uses the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol developed by financial institutions JP Morgan Chase Bank and Credit Suisse with contributions from Cisco, Red Hat, Novell and other high-tech firms.
But even as the Wall Street crowd increasingly puts its money on Linux — market watcher Tabb Group estimates that Linux adoption among the 14 biggest investment firms this year will reach more than 72% of the installed operating server base vs. 60% in 2006 — it’s clear concerns linger about the licensing model. That model requires users return changes to the open source community under certain circumstances, a touchy subject for companies that are battling to accelerate their business processes.