Linux received a vote of support as a platform for
corporate business applications as Oracle announced that seven of
its new customers in India have chosen to run the company's
technology and applications software on the open-source operating
system.
More than 180,000 developers from India are registered on the
Oracle Technology Network, the online platform where Oracle
developers interact with each other and Oracle experts.
Windows continues to be the most popular operating system
platform among Oracle developers in India, but the fact that
developers and users are embracing Linux is a sign that the
operating system is challenging Unix - a traditional platform for
corporate enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications - and
making inroads against Windows.
Among the new Oracle customers are the treasury department of
the government of the Indian state of West Bengal, and Bharat
Sanchar Nigam, a Delhi-based, government-controlled
telecommunications services provider.
Central Bank of India, a government-owned bank in Mumbai,
another new customer, expects 20% to 30% savings on its total IT
investments each year by using Linux , according to a spokesperson
for the bank.
"We were looking for a platform capable of handling our complex
and varied business needs," said Amitabh Pandey, group general
manager for IT services at Indian Railway Catering and Tourism
Corporation, a public sector company in Delhi owned by India's
ministry of railways.
"It also had to be cost effective. Oracle E-Business Suite and
Red Hat Linux was a perfect fit. We evaluated Linux as an
enterprise-wide platform and were very satisfied with the
performance."
India emerged as a battlefield in Microsoft's worldwide effort
to stem the rising use of Linux when Microsoft chairman and chief
software architect Bill Gates visited the country in November 2002,
and announced that his company would invest $400m in India over the
next three years in a number of areas, including computer literacy
and localisation of its software products.
Gates' announcement was seen by analysts as an effort to
pre-empt attempts by the Indian government from making a formal
decision to adopt open-source software.
Since then, Indian government has not made a formal announcement
to adopt Linux, but Microsoft has come under increasing pressure
from Linux and open-source proponents in India and around the
world.
Oracle has been pushing Linux very strongly in the Indian
market, which explains the growing popularity of the operating
system among Oracle users in the country, according to analysts.
"We have started actively recommending Linux to our customers, and
we provide first level support on the Linux operating system," said
a company spokeswoman.
"That is something that we do not do for any other operating
system."
Oracle's customers who have support agreements with the company
get Linux operating system support bundled free.
Having a software development centre in India has helped Oracle
push Linux there, as the sales and marketing groups at Oracle India
work with the Oracle India Development Centre to decide on the
right configuration and solution for the customer's requirements,
said Lakshminarasimhan Gopalakrishnan, director of the platform
technologies group at the IDC in Bangalore. The IDC also works with
Linux developers in India.
Oracle's IDC works with some key Linux distributors worldwide to
strengthen the Linux kernel and make it enterprise ready. The IDC
has also worked on a number of Oracle's projects in the Linux area,
including the development of Oracle Database 10g.
John Ribeiro writes for IDG News Service