http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/17/BUGTA5M3M21.DTL&type=tech
Open source opens doors
S.F. conference finds more U.S. companies switching to Linux, cutting
their costs
John Shinal, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Software developed by programmers who share their work for free over the
Internet used to be of interest mainly to computer geeks.
Now a growing number of large Bay Area companies use such open source
software to run their most important business applications, according to
corporate IT buyers attending a first-of-its-kind conference in San
Francisco.
As chief information officers switch to open source applications like
those that run on the Linux operating system, they are saving time and
money on everything from hosting video games to selling health care
services.
"We're saving hard dollars with open source," said Marc West, chief
information officer of Redwood City game developer Electronic Arts Inc.,
which expects sales to hit $2.9 billion for its fiscal year ending this
month.
In some cases the cost savings are dramatic, West and others told
attendees gathered at the Westin St. Francis Hotel for the Open Source
Business Conference 2004. The conference was partly sponsored by The
Chronicle.
Electronic Arts saved 35 percent on the cost of the computer servers it
uses to host its online gaming site when it replaced 2,000 machines with
800 new ones that run on Linux.
With fewer than half the pieces of hardware to manage, the company also
cut the cost of maintaining the site by more than 50 percent. That
allowed it to cut the monthly fee it charges users of the site to about
half what its rivals charge, West said.
It's not just tech companies that are saving by jumping on the open
source bandwagon.
McKesson Corp. of San Francisco, the world's largest seller of health
care management products and services, switched its "most important
customer- facing application" to an open source network run by Linux,
according to Chief Information Officer William Rachmiel.
Rachmiel said McKesson, which used the application to sell products and
services to hospitals and pharmacists, "saw a performance boost and
lower costs" by making the switch from its old servers, which used
proprietary software made by Sun Microsystems Inc.
McKesson's experience illustrates one of the chief ironies of how the
open source movement has developed.
Originally, the open source community coalesced around an alternative to
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, which runs more than 90
percent of the world's desktop personal computers.
While Linux may yet prove to be a threat to Microsoft's stranglehold on
the corporate PC market, the adoption of open source is first taking
market share from Sun, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other makers of server
computers.
In fact, West drew a laugh when he told the conference attendees that
his company has its old servers for sale "at a substantial discount."
Now Hewlett-Packard and other servermakers are accelerating the pace at
which they are developing open source applications.
HP initiates two to three new open source application development
projects per week, according to Martin Fink, vice president of the
company's Linux efforts. "That's 100 to 150 (projects) per year, and
it's accelerating," he said.
HP expects that by 2005, the number of users who have bought Linux
server software will total 17 million, up from 10 million in 2003, Fink
said.
Even as the open source movement goes corporate, however, it maintains
its rebellious spirit.
Earlier in the day, Stanford law Professor Lawrence Lessig drew a
standing ovation when he urged Silicon Valley companies to resist any
regulation or legislation that would restrict access to intellectual
property, including open source software.
"We need to reorganize the debate (in Washington) to make sure it's
about freeing the creative potential of innovators," which will
translate into enormous business opportunities, Lessig said.
E-mail John Shinal at jshinal-qxYgjPHdLTjfiIqoQl7HmA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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