Richard Voaden, IBM north region Linux software sales manager, says Linux is well on the way to getting over the stigma of not being good enough for
mission-critical applications. "IBM is beginning to deploy it in that way in manufacturing and financial trading."
Voaden says about 44% of Linux servers are replacing servers that formerly used other operating systems because Linux is much more cost-effective. He
points out that Linux enables companies to exploit commodity hardware from Intel rather than specialised hardware from a Unix provider.