“Hard cash, cold logic: Linux”
LinuxWorld Australia writes, “Hard cash, cold logic: Linux,” covering Elcot (Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu)’s migration of 30,000 desktops to SUSE Linux.
First, the managing director of Elcot installed Linux on a new laptop for testing purposes. Then, “within weeks, the Rs 750-crore Elcot was undergoing a enterprise-wide migration to Suse Linux. A year later, Umashankar and his team had moved 30,000 computers and 1,880 severs belonging to some of the state’s schools to Linux — creating possibly the largest Linux rollout in India.”
While Elcot’s 30,000 computers represent a huge migration, it is only a fraction of the state government’s total complement of desktop computers. Following Elcot’s success, the rest of the government is observing and possibly planning to migrate to Linux as well.
“Umashankar expects the entire operations of the government to gradually switch over to Linux/OpenOffice.org over the next 12 or 18 months. “Give it two or three virus attacks and you’ll see a faster migration,” he says tongue-in-cheek.”