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Enterprises tout Linux's cost, performance benefits Jun. 03, 2005

In contrast to its reputation for being difficult and sometimes expensive to implement, some large enterprises are beginning to see significant cost savings and performance benefits as a result of migrating to Linux.

Harry Roberts, CIO for Boscov's Department Store LLC, in Reading, Pa., told attendees at the Linux Solutions Retail Conference here last week that while a move to open source had initially been difficult to justify to company executives who knew little about Linux, the cost savings the company realized some two years into the implementation were enough to quell dissent.

"The annual savings directly related to Linux implementation is my trump card," Roberts said, adding that moving to Linux saved Boscov's $1 million in the first two years, with ongoing annual savings expected to be about $500,000. That figure could rise to $1 million per year by 2007 as the retailer continues to port technologies to Linux.

Boscov's has migrated not only edge applications to Linux but also its invoicing database server.

The tales told by Roberts and other IT executives at large enterprises run counter to the persistent pitch from Microsoft Corp. that moving to Linux is not only expensive but also difficult and time-consuming.

Robert Wiseman, chief technology officer of Cendant Corp.'s Travel Distribution Services division in Centennial, Colo., which has more than 5,000 employees in 110 countries and owns brands such as Galileo International Inc., Cheap Tickets Inc. and Orbitz LLC, said the company's move from a mainframe environment to Linux in 2001 has saved the company $100 million.

"When we moved to Linux, we also found that using the low-cost x86 hardware platform made our system run three times faster and was 90 percent cheaper than the mainframe using Unix had been. It also has the highest uptime of any system we have had. We have not had a single second of outage, either scheduled or unscheduled, since June 2004," Wiseman said.

-- Texeme