InformationWeek

So far, however, the demand for Linux systems-integration services is just a trickle. Compaq, for example, is beginning to see demand from users who don't want to develop Linux solutions themselves, but "it hasn't been a tidal wave," says Tim Yeaton, VP of Compaq's Unix Systems business unit. Most of Compaq's Linux customers are doing the systems-integration and maintenance work themselves. One place Compaq is seeing demand for its professional services is in the technical computing arena, where some companies are seeking help building large Linux Beowulf clusters-loosely coupled Linux supercomputers made up of hundreds or thousands of separate PCs or RISC computers.

It's the same story at Big Five consulting firms. Ernst & Young is seeing plenty of interest in Linux among its large clients, says Chell Smith, a partner in the firm's Critical Technologies Group, but most of them are still experimenting with it. "They've probably got it in a lab someplace," she says, "and they're talking to us about it, but not asking for support yet." Ernst & Young is seeing more actual Linux business among its dot-com clients. Still, Smith says, the revenue from Linux projects is "fairly negligible." At KPMG, 10% or more of new projects involve Linux, says Michael Herzog, managing director of E-Integration Solutions at KPMG Consulting.

Yet both firms are gearing up for an increase in Linux business. Ernst & Young has close to 100 people with Linux skills, Smith says, and expects to double that figure within the next year.

Linux has been strongest in the Internet market, with some 30% of Web servers powered by Linux, according to some estimates. So you might expect that Linux would be an important tool for a company such as Viant Inc., which builds high-end E-commerce sites. That's not the case, however. Viant is "not seeing a whole lot of business on Linux," says Tim Andrews, the company's chief technology officer.

The reason, Andrews says, is that Linux is still relatively immature when it comes to support for multiprocessor machines and other features important to users running high-throughput E-commerce systems. Andrews says most of these customers are happier running on an operating system such as Sun Solaris.

If demand for Linux picks up, however, Viant will be prepared. "We have plenty of Linux expertise," Andrews says. "We're running it in-house all over the place."

For NRT Inc., one of the country's largest real-estate brokerages, Linux systems-integration and support decisions were driven largely by the application. In 1999, the Parsippany, N.J., company-which owns some 700 Century 21, Coldwell Banker, and ERA offices-bought Jack Gaughen Realtors, a Harrisburg, Pa., real-estate brokerage. Jack Gaughen Realtors used software that let real-estate brokers manage their listings and their customers, create flyers and direct-mail pieces, and post listings to the Web, as well as communicate easily with other real-estate agents.

The software was ideal for NRT's brokers, says Kristine Miklusek, a senior VP at NRT. "We saw it as a terrific package, with all sorts of benefits for our sales associates," she says.

There was just one problem. NRT was overwhelmingly a Windows NT shop, and the application was built on Linux. "Linux was not our operating system of choice," Miklusek says. "But given the compelling nature of the application, we've decided to move forward with it anyway."

Jack Gaughen Realtors' 19 offices in Harrisburg continue to use the system, and in early 1999, NRT began testing it with some 500 real-estate agents at 19 Coldwell Banker offices in Cincinnati. NRT has three technical-support staffers in Cincinnati and two in Harrisburg who take care of simple problems with the system, and handle hardware problems. Most of the servers running the system were supplied by VA Linux Systems, which also handles their maintenance. The application and the Linux operating system, however, are supported by the company that wrote the application, Keystone Programming. "We like the idea of using the people who wrote the code originally," says Miklusek.

Keystone has worked with Unix since the company was founded in 1983. During the last several years, it has phased out most commercial Unix variants and now does more than 95% of its business on Linux. As part of the application, Keystone has developed a replication capability that distributes data to each real-estate office using the system, Keystone president Jim Capp says. This also allows files and commands to be distributed across the system, which "lets us administer 20 boxes as easily as we can administer one," Capp says. Keystone, which has just 10 employees, uses this capability to administer the NRT system remotely.

For NRT, the support arrangements have been working out well. The company hasn't decided what it will do for support if it deploys the system throughout the company. "We're still in an exploration phase," Miklusek says, "but our choice would be either to continue using Keystone or to develop our own team in-house." To prepare for the latter possibility, NRT is beginning to train some of the staff at its national IT headquarters in Mission Viejo, Calif., to administer the system.