It's difficult to believe just how pervasive Linux is these days, I still recall the late 90's where the linux movement was still trying to gain traction and any large commercial user was big news. Of course, most companies were running Linux in some form, the IT department simply neglected to tell the business ;)
Then one fine day the following appeared on slashdot:
I was working at Corporate express leading the electronic commerce team at the time. The original system had been developed by the late Anthony Rumble, Grant Parnell and Myself with a number of other noteworthy people working on the project over the years. We entered the 'competition', little did we expect we would actually win the thing:The Standish Group: I Bet the Farm on Linux
Mar 18, 1999, 21:46 (28 Talkback[s])
A Worldwide ContestThe Standish Group will award a plush cozy blanket to the selected IT executive in a medium or large company anywhere on the planet who can document a successful deployment of any mission-critical application on the Linux operating system.This luxurious, deep-pile cotton blanket is suitable for curling up into the fetal position and sucking your thumb when your T-1 lines go down. Or when you just feel like schlepping around the office with a dog named Snoopy. HURRY. Enter now to claim this coveted, one-of-a-kind prize. This one-time offer won't last long. Enter NOW while supply (one blanket) lasts. You do not have to be present to win.Here are the hastily-devised contest rules:1) Only commercial organizations with annual revenues exceeding $250M are eligible. (Sorry, high-tech companies, non-profit and government agencies are ineligible.)(Sorry, Standish Group employees, you're not eligible either.)2) The winning organization must be running at least one mission-critical production application on Linux. We define a mission-critical application as an ATM network, a purchasing system, an airline reservation system, an order processing system or any other OLTP system. Task uncritical applications such as general ledger, accounts payable, e-mail, word processing and general office applications don't qualify. Don't bother.3) We must be able to interview the senior IT executive at the company to verify details of the winning system.4) Only the senior IT executive at the company can receive this prestigious award.In the unlikely case of multiple entries, the decision of a panel of distinguished judges will be based upon an aerodynamic random selection method by means of a semi-precious metal to determine the winner. Decision of the judges is final.To enter, fill in the entry form, including a brief description of your Linux-based mission-critical system. All entries must be submitted by April 1, 1999. (Just kidding. Entries are due in by May 1, 1999.)Editor's note: The contest is currently closed. Links to the rules and entry form have been taken down at the request of the Standish group.
I still have the 'security blanket' at home. Not much of a claim to fame, but worth remembering there was a time when running linux was seen as 'out there'.Announcing the Winner of The Standish Group's "I Bet the Farm on Linux" Contest Friday, May 7, 1999The Standish Group is pleased to announce the winner of our "I Bet the Farm on Linux" contest. We created the contest to find a commercial organization with annual revenues exceeding $250 million anywhere on the planet that had successfully deployed a mission-critical application on the Linux operating system.The winner is Corporate Express Australia Ltd., the leading supplier of office products and services to large Australian corporations and government departments.The A$342-million publicly traded company has built and deployed a Linux-based e-commerce order processing system, which generates more than 10% of the company's annual sales. (CE-A is a division of the $3.7 billion Corporate Express, Inc., global provider of office and computer products and services in 300 locations worldwide.)Elke Roewekamp, CE-A's application development manager and leader of the 4-person e-commerce group that built and operates the system, will receive the grand (and only) contest prize -- a cozy, cotton blanket emblazoned with the words "I Bet the Farm on Linux."The "I Bet the Farm on Linux" contest was created to supplement our research into the adoption of the Linux OS in corporate computing environments.Our research confirmed that Linux is being used in mission-critical applications, however sparingly. Its market penetration is chiefly on departmental servers, application servers, network servers, e-mail servers, FTP servers, print servers, file servers, Web servers, e-commerce software development, and very small enterprises. It has a reputation for reliability that puts Windows NT to shame. It is cheap. It boasts a string of vendor endorsements. Commercial 24 x 7 technical support is available from HP, IBM and others. These are good things, because they increase the confidence level in Linux for corporate IT directors.While Linux is suitable for certain applications, can it handle "bet the farm" mission-critical production applications? A manufacturing shop floor production system, for example, or a financial ATM network? We wanted to know. Hence, the contest, which was posted on our Standish Web site from March 15 to April 30, 1999. When the contest closed, we had received entries from companies in the U.S., Australia and Brazil.In early 1997, Corporate Express Australia Ltd. introduced NetExpress, a business-to-business Linux-based e-commerce order processing system. The company's corporate and governmental customers (CE has no retail operation) can select from 11,000 different products, all available electronically through NetExpress. Earlier this year, CE-A added online stock availability and secure credit card encryption to its e-commerce application.CE-A launched NetExpress with an initial investment of less than A$50,000 and only one customer. Two years later, NetExpress -- with a total investment of less than A$200,000 -- serves 1,000 customers, processes 800-900 orders per day, and generates A$4 million in sales per month, or over 10% of the company's annual revenue. Roewekamp expects Web sales to double to A$8 million per month by year-end.NetExpress runs entirely on Linux. (So does CE-A's EDI system, which generates another A$6 million per month via the Web.) For NetExpress, Roewekamp selected Red Hat Linux 5.2 and installed the OS on three Intel-based servers -- one for the database, a second for the Web browser, and a third for catalog image storage.Roewekamp says low startup costs, bulletproof reliability, and a worldwide community of developers and technical support resources were the three key reasons why CE-A chose Linux. No other operating system was considered.NetExpress runs 24 x 7, and Roewekamp says her expectations of Linux were "really high." She has not been disappointed. System availability is 99.99% or higher, she says."NetExpress has proven to be a market differentiator for us, allowing us to gain a one- or two-year advantage on our major competitors," she says. "Linux lets us concentrate on the business benefits we deliver to our customers rather than continually maintaining or working with the constraints of the more traditional operating systems."Currently deployed in Australia and New Zealand, NetExpress is being considered for deployment by CE's European offices.For a demonstration of NetExpress, go to www.ce.com.au. There you can open a free demo account and test all the functions of the system.
