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September 27, 1999

Linux Reaches Out

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Illustration by Peter Fasolino

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It isn't likely that the average knowledge worker will see his or her Microsoft Office applications swept aside in favor of a suite of Linux productivity software anytime soon, Figgatt and others say. Ease of use, data compatibility between Linux and Windows systems, and a larger variety of software will all have to come first.

That said, there is some momentum in the software world--even in the office suites arena, a critical battleground in proving mainstream legitimacy. Corel Corp. has sold a Linux version of WordPerfect for some time, and Applix Inc. offers its Applixware integrated office suite for Linux. Sun Microsystems attracted a lot of attention with its acquisition earlier this month of Star Division and its StarOffice suite for Linux, Windows, Solaris, and OS/2, which it will continue to make available for free. Like Linux itself, the package can be downloaded via the Internet, and Sun will make the source code for Star Portal, the Web-ready version of the product, available to enterprises and service providers that wish to host the product.

Vignette Corp., a software and services provider for Internet relationship management in Austin, Texas, recently downloaded the Linux version of StarOffice and plans to put it through some heavy testing on desktops, according to senior systems administrator John Bell. He's a proponent of Linux's open nature. "It's the oft-cited 'free speech vs. free beer' argument," Bell says. "If someone gives you free beer, all you've got is a beer. It's one product--and one you may not even like. But if you have free speech, you can participate and help shape the product."

Some industry executives have reservations about such an open approach. "Most mission-critical software has been developed by individual companies," says Mark Silverberg, Unix marketing manager at Compaq. "Before it gets released, it's been tested and quality-checked internally, then offered to the outside world. This open approach of Linux is something new, and we won't know for a while what aspects of it will receive priority, who will address them, and so on."

Even so, if StarOffice does the job Vignette wants it to, addressing users' basic needs for tasks such as word processing and spreadsheets, then "a big roadblock to Linux on the desktop, the availability of general desktop apps, will be overcome," Bell says. "And if we find something we'd like improved, we hope Sun is open to that input." Right now, however, Linux is being used primarily as a server operating system at Vignette, handling E-mail, file services, print services, and CD-ROM services.

Amerada Hess Corp., the New York petroleum company, runs Linux on its servers, ranging from E-mail systems to a supercomputer-like cluster of 96 PCs that run geothermal- and petroleum-seeking homegrown applications. But the company also recently loaded the operating system onto notebooks so that software developers who want to write code at home or on the road can work in a Linux environment, rather than having to move code from a Windows machine to a server and then modify it to run in a Linux environment.

Meanwhile, IBM recently became the first vendor to offer Red Hat Linux as a certified operating system for a notebook computer, offering it on its ThinkPad 600E. By year's end, IBM plans to provide compatibility with additional Linux distributors, including Caldera Systems, SuSe, and TurboLinux, to run on a wider spectrum of ThinkPad models.

But Linux as a mainstream desktop operating system is almost unheard of at Amerada Hess, save for a few hardy developers and the odd contractor or intern. "That could change," says Jeff Davis, systems administrator in the company's infrastructure group. "We see software vendors becoming much more receptive to the idea of porting their apps to Linux. If we could get some packaged geophysics apps, ERP, and things like Microsoft Office and Outlook for Linux, it would be an easy swap-over."

Amerada Hess has already saved $3 million by swapping out Unix in favor of Linux, which runs well on relatively cheap servers. "Desktop savings wouldn't be as huge," Davis says, "but big enough to get our attention."

Davis and Bell are IT staffers, a constituency that tends to be more enthusiastic about the benefits of Linux than the world at large. Linux application vendors acknowledge that there's often a gap between technical users' perceptions and end users' wishes. "I think things will soon come to a head," says R.J. Grandpre, VP of sales and marketing for the Linux division of Applix. "On the one hand, you have IS employees and senior management who want to save money and run things efficiently. On the other hand, you have users who are used to Microsoft Office and Windows in general, and who probably don't want to change anything."

That raises the specter of IT execs attempting to proselytize a solution to something few end users regard as a problem. "The people most likely to adopt Linux on the desktop are those with a religious aversion to Microsoft," analyst Gartenberg says. "From an enterprise standpoint, Windows is adequate if not stellar--and for most companies, that's going to remain good enough."

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