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Linux and Intel Together: Ready for Prime Time: Page 3 of 4

Often, the first companies that move are those that see technology as a competitive advantage. "They see that the flexibility and cost of ownership of Linux will help them with that strategy [and] are the first to move," said Brian Cox, product line manager for Business Critical Systems (BCS) atHP, Palo Alto, Calif. "Others know that they need to do a technology refresh are taking a close look at Itanium-based products because they know they can move forward with Itanium on Unix and move to Linux someday if they want to."

In June, HP introduced its Itanium 2-based Superdome servers with eight processors. Although currently available only with the Unix HP/UX and Windows Server 2003 operating system, the company has promised to add Linux to the Superdome family in mid-2004. In addition, IBM in Armonk, N.Y., in June took the wraps off its eServer systems which will scale up to 32 Intel Xeon MP or Itanium 2 processors.

Another concern for corporate users is their ability to adequately support yet another operating system.
"Within the Fortune 2000, it is a rare situation when we come across a company that is not actively trying to use Linux software wherever possible," said Richard McCormack, vice president of marketing for Fujitsu in the U.S. "Frequently, the decision they finally make is influenced by their own comfort level and their skill set from a training point of view within the IT organization."
Fujitsu is shipping its PRIMERGY RX300 and PRIMERGY TX300 dual Intel Xeon servers running Red Hat's Linux operating system. The Fujitsu rack and tower servers feature Intel Xeon 3.06 GHz processors with 533 MHz Front Side Bus and Hyper-Threading architecture.

Smaller companies are likely to be more reluctant to take up the Linux mantel in light of support and training issues. "In the small to medium enterprise, you'll see a little slower take up," said McCormack. "The smaller guys are still saying 'Show me,' since they don't have big IT shops to do the testing, so they need to wait until it is well proven in the streets."

However, these concerns should be short-lived as companies begin to develop in-house talent experienced in supporting Intel-based servers and Linux applications. "Any time a company does something new and transitions from something that was known, there is always concern, but as they train IT staff and build expertise on Intel architecture, they get less and less concerned because they have more resources at their disposal," said Intel's Pulin.