Open Source: The Penguin Rules

FY 07 was significant in more ways than one for the proponents of Linuxright from its whole-hearted adoption by southern states to the first-ever partnership between an open source (Novell) and proprietary software company (Microsoft). 

In FY 07, the government took the lead in adopting Linux for critical applications. The financial sector also considered Linux for security and from the interoperability standards view point, apart from the usual TCO factor. Linux managed to make major inroads into areas like insurance and total branch automation with four out of top five public sector insurance companies already using Linux.

Market players agree that with more and more Linux-based applications emerging as the preferred choice for those operating in micro-finance and non-banking financial companies like the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, a similar trend is expected to soon catch on in India. The Indian Linux market grew from Rs 144 crore to Rs 205 crore.

Opposites Attract?

The year will be best remembered for the first ever partnership between Microsoft and Novell to build, market, and support a series of new solutions to make the two products work better together. The partnership formed with the intention of servicing enterprise customers, will seek to deliver practical value by bringing two of their most important platform investments closer together, thus enabling interoperability. As per the agreement, Microsoft would officially recommend SuSe Linux Enterprise, and distribute coupons for SuSe Linux Enterprise Server maintenance and support for customers who want Windows and Linux solutions. The customers can then benefit from the use of an interoperable version of Linux with patent coverage as well as collaborative work between the two companies.

Even as the pact was hailed as proof of the importance of Linux, the competitor to Microsofts Windows OS, the terms of the pact have run into rough weather. The general counsel of the Free Software Foundation, which holds the license to Linux, urged Microsoft to re-think on the pledge not to file patent infringement suit against customers who use Novells version of SuSe Linux. The counsel wanted the pledge to be extended to all Linux users or none.

The pact would also enable Microsoft to make leeway into the market share of Red Hat, as its customers would not be able to enjoy the same patent benefit as Novell customers.

Novell on the other hand claimed that the agreement is not an acknowledgement that Linux infringes upon Microsfts intellectual property. Meanwhile, Microsofts Ballmer claimed that the "agreement compensated Microsoft", because Linux "uses our patented intellectual property", the future of the pact certainly does not seem too bright.

For Novell though, the deal was god-sent Microsoft would be paying Novell a sum total of $380 mn, which includes payment for SuSe Linux Enterprise Server subscription certificates

Meanwhile, the Indian players are already excited over the pact. With a significant support for open source systems in India, companies could go in for a heterogeneous system, thereby combining both Windows and Linux. With a large chunk of servers in India already on the Windows platform, the pact can give users the freedom to opt for multiple environments, using SuSe Linux.

The open source movement is turning out to be quite a challenge for Microsoft with big names like Google and Amazon already using open source systems. Red Hat too could give Microsoft a formidable challenge in the days to come.

But with this masterstroke, the open source market is divided into two camps: one led from the back by Microsoft, and on the other end are the baiters. And, the preference for interoperable systems could boost Novells sagging fortune and eat into Red Hats share.

Linux in the Government

In a bid to popularize Linux, the Kerala state government has already announced plans to promote free and open source software in education to avoid monopoly. Underlining the importance of the Kerala market for Linux companies, Red Hat has signed an MoU with the state government for supporting Keralas development of open source software.

Tamil Nadu has already dispatched 6,100 Acer desktop systems with SuSe Linux. Chennai is deploying 32,600 Linux desktop systems and training 30,000 government officials for the same along with 43 open source based servers supporting government applications. The Electronics Corporation of India decided in favor of open source software because of its lower cost than proprietary software.

The breakthrough partnership between Novell-Microsoft hopes to break into Red Hats monopoly in the Linux market

Enterprises Keen Too

With most Indian enterprises adopting Linux like never before, it was the financial sector that was one of the early adopters with major inroads in the areas of insurance and total branch automation.

Reiterating the trend that BFSI has become one of the earliest and most aggressive adopters of Linux, LIC chose to implement Red Hat Enterprise Linux across its desktops and servers, enabling it to completely migrate all critical business applications to Linux across all its locations. Canara Bank also deployed Linux for powering its mission critical banking services on approximately 1,000 servers and 10,000 desktops. The Central Bank of India also moved its entire computing infrastructure to Red Hat, and successfully migrated database and TBA application across the 1,115 branches on Linux. For banking, its entire online share trading operations, India Bulls trusted to go ahead with Linux and the mission critical need was satisfied post the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on low cost servers. By doing this India Bulls managed to procure a cost effective alternative to proprietary technologies and achieved 10 times better performance.

The growing importance of India for Red Hat worldwide is evident from the launch of its Global Services Center in Mumbai. The center will build and implement open source enterprise solutions and services for Red Hats global customers.

Whats in Store

This year Indian enterprises finally realized that open source did not mean only Linux, but included source code of any other software in the open source domain. The Linux market has reached maturity as both IBM and Oracle have been evangelizing Linux for sometime now. And, that Linux has reached a level of robustness, flexibility, manageability, support that is expected of operating platforms. The future is certainly bright for the Penguin in India, as the 11th five-year plan (2007-12) too has recommended the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), indicating the maturity of open-source software.

Stuti Das