Financial Business's Linux Use Doubled in 2004

A beautiful mind writes "Linux usage got boosted in the financial sector thanks to mainstream suppliers like IBM and Sun from 27 percent last year to 58 percent in 2005, according to a report from financial technology researchers Finextra. In fact the growing support for Linux has been the single biggest technology change in financial organisations over the past 12 months, say the researchers writing in the Financial Technology Strategies 2005 survey."

Comments

Chosen for Technological Reasons?

[SpottedKuh]

Don't misunderstand this post: I think it is an excellent trend that Linux is taking a larger share in the business world. Hopefully vendors will even start to pick up on other open-source solutions (BSD, etc) too. After all, open-source is all about choice and freedom.

However, I question whether companies such as IBM are truly choosing Linux based on technological reasons, or if they are just marketing "Linux" as a buzzword to upper-management types who may have heard something about it.

After all, a quick look at IBM's portal site for Linux, http://www.ibm.com/linux/, does not show a page detailing the technological benefits of Linux. Heck, it barely mentions financial benefits. What I do see is a bunch of snazzy logos, and some rather devoid-of-meaning slogans such as, "Business and Linux in an On Demand World."

Am I being too harsh on IBM, or are they really just playing the marketing game?

Re:Chosen for Technological Reasons?

[Stevyn]

Well, you have to attack both sides. One side is technical merits, the other side is financial merits. There is also "the golf course chit-chat" side, and that's why the link you included is so easy to remember.

Re:Chosen for Technological Reasons?

[SpottedKuh]

What is an example of a "technological reason"? Linux is not that great technologically.

Perhaps a matter of perspective. I'm not claiming that Linux is a gem of engineering perfection; what I am claiming is that it is a useful and reasonably robust system that can provide a large number of services, similar to what you stated. I consider this a technological reason to consider Linux.

Perhaps the point of my post (the grandparent) can best be summarized with this observation: Go to the main site for Windows XP Pro: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/default.msp x. Directly linked from this site is a page discussing reasons to choose Windows XP Pro: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/ whyupgrade/sidebyside/default.mspx.

Regardless of my views or your views on Linux, I find it amazing that IBM doesn't provide a similar page on reasons to choose Linux, linked directly to their portal page. Granted such a page for Linux would be geared to a different audience than such a page for Windows; but, you'd think if IBM was truly espousing Linux for technological reasons, there would be such a page.

Re:Chosen for Technological Reasons?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Can you find such a page on HP's website for HPUX, or Sun's website for Solaris, or even IBM's website for AIX? Without looking for more than 30 seconds, I couldn't find any such pages. I did find a lot of stuff like IBM's linux page - case studies, customer testominals, white papers, etc.

I think you are reading too much into things, IBM's just marketing Linux the way everybody in the same market does. Plus, consider this - the only place that is going to toot the horn for Windows is Microsoft, or one of their paid shills. There are horns tooting for linux all over the place, "open source marketing" means different parties can handle different parts of the marketing effort - while microsoft's "propietary marketing" means they have to do it all themselves. Poor little micro...

Re:Chosen for Technological Reasons?

[Bas_Wijnen]

After all, open-source is all about choice and freedom.

Actually, it isn't. Free software is about choice and freedom. Open source is about a development model which builds good software. Open source software happens to be also free software in most cases, but open source software supporters and free software supporters have very different goals. Linus, the big name in open source, doesn't care about freedom at all, or at least so it seems. He doesn't have a problem with requiring closed source tools for efficiently hacking on his kernel, anyway. For RMS, the big name in free software, that would be completely unacceptable.

Re:financial something or other

[Stevyn]

What's a kernel panic? I've heard about them, but never experienced one in 9 months.

Re:financial something or other

[Digital Pizza]

You must have good hardware that's supported by stable drivers; I definately get crashes under Linux.

My stability decreased under mid-range 2.4, then got better again with the later versions, then decreased again under 2.6. This is on a Dell Latitude C600 and my desktop (ASUS A7M266 board, SB Live, GeForce3, Athlon XP2000+, WinTV card. No problems with Windows XP on either system.

Not bashing Linux here (or you), but it isn't perfect. I get a feeling of smug complacency from a lot of Linux users that won't help it to improve.

Re:financial something or other

[Stevyn]

I'm running the 2.6.10 kernel on a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop myself. To be fair, I haven't had a kernel panic, but I've had X lock up on me when trying some experimental settings for the NVIDIA drivers. That's about it actually. I do agree with you though. It's not good when people assume linux is 100% stable.

Re:financial something or other

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Been running since June of 1993. Kernel 0.97,pl4. Never saw a kernel panic until December of 2004. Linux isn't 100% stable, but there's nothing running on a PC that can beat it.

Re:financial something or other

[Digital Pizza]

I had major problems in Fedora Core 2, especially with X-Windows; I tried Suse 9.1 and had the same exact problem: switching virtual terminals a couple of times (or force-qutting X) would cause the whole machine to lock up completely (no response to pings either)!

This was apparently a problem with the then-new X.org server; my Dell c600 has an ATI Rage128 chip in it, fully supported by the open source X driver for years. Had to go back to Fedora Core 1. I don't think it's right that X can take down the whole machine!

Now I'm running Fedora Core 3 and everything is working perfectly! While the problems do eventually get worked out, Linux does go through some rough spells, especially when something major changes (like a new X server).

Front or Back

[superpulpsicle]

There are 2 sides to the financial use of linux. First is the front, the user interface like quicken. Second is the back, the database holding the financial data like oracle. Linux still has a long way to go in both.

Re:financial something or other

[Xtifr]

Well, as long as we're tossing out anecdotal evidence, I've been using Linux off-and-on since the 0.12 release, and using it full-time since 1998, and none of my machines has ever had a kernel panic. On the other hand, I helped a friend set up a dual-boot machine, and that one got kernel panics frequently. However, Windows worked even worse on that machine, crashing constantly, and, within a couple of weeks, Windows had stopped working at all, while Linux kept limping along for several months, until we jetissoned the box.

But I think the important thing to keep in mind here is that anecdotal evidence is pretty much useless. Until you (or someone) does a serious study, all we can really say is that your one machine doesn't seem to get along with Linux, while my several (over half-a-dozen) various machines do.

No, Linux isn't perfect. If I wanted real, super stability, I'd probably switch to BSD. Unfortunately, I hate BSD userspace. When the Debian project finishes their GNU/BSD system, I might switch to that.

Re:financial something or other

[Nevyn]

No, Linux isn't perfect. If I wanted real, super stability, I'd probably switch to BSD.

1996 called and they want their catch phrase back.

*BSD isn't perfect either, it's just different (unless someone you know has done a study :). That's no bad thing, in it's own way ... but just because it's harder/different doesn't mean it's better (and you there in the back with the debian shirt on, you sit down too).