Linux eats its way out to the mainstream

摘要

Without ballyhoo or headlines, open source is eating away at the enterprise computing core and moving steadily outwards. Open source desktops are here already, but I believe it will be at least three years before we see any real effect on the Microsoft-dominated corporate desktop. So on the surface nothing looks untoward, but a look inside tells a very different story. A factor in this phenomenon is the steady commoditisation of Intel/AMD-based computers. Supercomputing power is now readily available for commercial and academic use, running on Linux clusters. Oil companies have been keen proponents of these clustered installations to process exploration and geophysical data.