• 02Jul

    Virtual Linux is the prescription for hospital patients

    Open Source News

    A Californian hospital is using Linux virtual desktops to provide patients with email and web access.

    Glendale Adventist Medical Center (GAMC) has installed thin clients running Linux virtual desktops in 65 patient rooms in its new West Tower.

    “Just as easily as the hospital provides patients with TVs in rooms, now we provide personal computing,” said Roger Pruyne, senior programmer/analyst and project manager for the GAMC Patient Computing project.

    The system combines NoMachine’s NX remote access and virtualisation software, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and an IBM System x3650 server.

    GAMC estimates that this approach saves 98 percent of the cost that would have been involved if conventional PCs had been selected.

    Virtualisation keeps the cost down while maintaining privacy and security. No data is stored on the thin clients, so there’s no need to wipe those devices when a patient is discharged.

    “NX’s unique compression and caching features also provide a seamless remote connection from the thin client to the server, giving the patients the feel of being on their own personal computer, while reducing power consumption and support costs,” said Sarah Dryell, business development manager at NoMachine.

    GAMC is planning to extend its use of virtual desktops to employees and clinicians.

    “Considering our patients’ positive feedback, we’re looking to expand the project to other Adventist Health hospital locations,” added Pruyne.

    Just over a month ago, iTWire reported on another institutional use of Linux for ‘guests’ – the PrisonPC system recently installed at the Alexander Maconochie Centre correctional facility in Australia. PrisonPC uses thick clients with centralised storage. Ubuntu Linux was selected for that product.

  • 29Jun

    Berlin art colleges switch to Linux

    Open Source News

    Berlin’s art colleges are completely switching over to Linux. Most of the productivity software on the workstations has already been swapped for free alternative products as part of a project that started over eighteen months ago. The IT team at ServiceCenter-IT, responsible for the migration at three colleges; the Hanns Eisler music college, the Ernst Busch drama college and the Berlin-Weissensee art college, is hoping for an easy migration, as users will be able to keep on working with their familiar applications. Starting in June, their workstation PCs will switch to Ubuntu Linux and their servers will use Debian.

    The change is being made because the existing hardware cannot be upgraded to Windows Vista or Windows 7. The colleges would have had to spend five-figure sums to buy newer hardware and pay additional licence fees for Windows. The money that they’ve saved is now going to be spent on teaching.

    As part of the changeover, the colleges are also developing platform-independent software to manage teaching and working contracts. The application is being licensed under the GPLv3 and, after its completion, will be available to all users.

  • 26Jun

    Bad economy is good for open source

    Open Source News

    For those wondering whether Oracle or Red Hat is weathering the recession best, this week may have settled the question. On Tuesday the market cheered Oracle for only seeing a 5.2 percent drop in revenue, with a 7.2 percent drop in profit (absent the strong dollar, Oracle would have seen a 4 percent increase in revenue and a 5 percent increase in profit).

    Red Hat? Well, on Wednesday Red Hat announced fiscal first-quarter revenue of $174 million, up 11 percent from the prior year. Subscription revenue was up 14 percent year over year to $148.8 million. The company’s total deferred revenue balance is now $567.3 million, an increase of 15 percent on a year-over-year basis. Net income for the quarter was $18.5 million.

    Both Oracle and Red Hat are doing well, and Oracle is obviously dealing with much bigger wads of money, but it seems clear that Red Hat’s open-source model is the big winner in the recession.

    In fact, on Red Hat’s earnings call, Chief Executive Jim Whitehurst indicated: “Budgets remain tight and we don’t see an end in sight for this. In relative terms, this is pretty good for us.”

  • 29May

    The New Face of Open Source on Wall Street

    Open Source News

    Open source has long flourished on Wall Street as financial services firms have sought competitive differentiation by tweaking open-source software for enhanced performance and functionality. Wall Street was the first sector to buy heavily into Linux, and it has also welcomed a host of other open-source infrastructure projects.

    Indeed, Wall Street adoption has reached the point, in the words of senior Accenture executive Lloyd Altman, that open source has become a mandate for cash-strapped financial services firms tasked with doing more with less.

    “I’ve seen this in my own business: open-source applications are suddenly the less risky choice, given the need to get more for less.”

  • 09Apr

    Hard Times May Boost Linux in Financial Services

    Open Source News

    Today Linux is the go-to operating system for high performance computing, while it continues to extend its footprint in the broader IT community. In the financial services arena, in particular, Linux is being seen as a critical technology for increasing ROI.

    At the High Performance Linux on Wall Street conference in New York, Inna Kuznetsova, director of IBM’s Linux Strategy, led a panel that discussed how Linux can be used to reduce costs and improve performance in these economically challenging times. They talked about the increasing profile of Linux for IBM customers and how the technology is enabling them to realize cost savings.

  • 13Mar

    Linux Gaining Strength In Downturn

    Open Source News

    A February survey of IT managers by IDC indicated that hard times are accelerating the adoption of Linux. The open source operating system will emerge from the recession in a stronger data center position than before, concluded an IDC white paper.

    Sixty-five percent of the 330 respondents said they plan to increase Linux server workloads by 10% or more this year. Sixty-three percent said they will increase their use of Linux on the desktop by more than 10% this year, although such an increase would still probably represent a miniscule share of all desktops. Forty-nine percent said they expect Linux will be their primary server platform within five years.

  • 05Mar

    Have Code, Will Travel – Sabre Chooses Open Source to Power its Business

    Open Source News

    Whenever you buy an airline ticket or book a hotel room these days, chances are that a good part of that transaction will run through Sabre’s network. Sabre is one of the world’s largest suppliers of technology solutions for the airline and travel industry. What you may not be aware of, however, is that Sabre has made open-source software a cornerstone of its technology strategy. Sabre already relies on a number of open-source projects to handle thousands of transactions every second, and today, Sabre and Progress FUSE announced a new partnership that will make a number of FUSE’s open-source offerings a cornerstone of Sabre’s technology.

    Sabre will use FUSE ESB, Message Broker, and Mediation Router for its Supplier-Side Gateway, which allows Sabre’s suppliers to interface with its services.

  • 25Feb

    UK government backs open source

    Open Source News

    The UK government has said it will accelerate the use of open source software in public services.

    Tom Watson MP, minister for digital engagement, said open source software would be on a level playing field with proprietary software such as Windows.

    Open source software will be adopted “when it delivers best value for money”, the government said.

    It added that public services should where possible avoid being “locked into proprietary software”.

    Licenses for the use of open source software are generally free of charge and embrace open standards, and the code that powers the programs can be modified without fear of trampling on intellectual property or copyright.

    According to some in the open source industry, the shift from proprietary standards could save the government £600m a year.

  • 05Feb

    Now Brazil Goes Big on the GNU/Linux Desktop

    Open Source News

    At the end of last year a big Brazilian project provided 150,000 GNU/Linux notebooks for schools. Now the Brazilian Ministry of Education has topped that by ordering 324,000 “green” workstations running on GNU/Linux.

    Here’s the announcement by the Canadian company Userful, which is providing the very cool technology:

    “Userful, ThinNetworks, and Positivo today announced that they have been selected to supply 324,000 virtualized desktops to schools in all of Brazil’s 5,560 municipalities.

    This initiative will provide computer access to millions of children throughout Brazil. It is a historical achievement being: the world’s largest ever virtual desktop deployment; the world’s largest ever desktop Linux deployment; and a new record low-cost for PCs with the PC sharing hardware and software costing less than $50 per seat.”

    The workstations are “green” because they are virtual desktops consisting of just a screen and a keyboard/mouse, all plugged into a central unit; up to 10 such low-energy setups can run off one PC. The claimed savings are considerable:

    Userful’s ability to turn 1 computer into 10 independent workstations will save the Brazilian government an estimated $47 million in up-front costs, $9 million in annual power savings and additional savings in ongoing administration and support costs. The computers will use 90% less electricity as compared to a traditional PC-per-workstation solution.

  • 30Jan

    Open Source Controls 18% of PBX Market

    Open Source News

    In a finding that will surprise many suppliers of traditional telephony gear and services, a research firm has concluded that open-source systems make up nearly one-fifth of all sales of enterprise PBXs.

    “We conclude that in 2008, 2.86 million open source PBX end points were installed,” wrote John Malone, CEO of telecom consultancy Eastern Management Group in an article summarizing the report findings on No Jitter. “The total market was 15.88 million lines, giving Open Source PBXs an 18% share.”

    Entitled “The Market for Open Source PBXs,” the study is based on three surveys: one of 6,734 IT executives, one of open-source PBX vendors, and the third of 100 telecom resellers.

    “A market shift is underway, and has been since Open Source PBXs arrived,” the report concluded. “Traditional telephone system manufacturers are now, largely unknowingly, competing for a bigger share of a shrinking market.”

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