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.

Vendors

Revenue (Rs crore)

Red Hat

180

Novell (SuSe)

20

Others

5

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.

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 11^th
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


stutid@cybermedia.co.in