NYSE Euronext banks on Red Hat
If anyone out there persists in believing that Linux isn't ready for serious prime time, NYSE Euronext's dependence on Red Hat should finally lay that silly notion to rest. As announced, the New York Stock Exchange Euronext dumped its proprietary UNIX heritage (AIX, HP UX, Solaris) for the freedom, flexibility, and performance of Linux.
As NYSE Euronext's CIO noted:
With the combination of speed, cost, reliability, and functionality pushed to the limit, we have to out perform the competition in each category, and our competition is getting better all the time. Linux as an operating system has been the fastest growing with respect to these requirements, and we're not limited by what's in front of us. The quality of the Linux platform is greatly important to us and Red Hat Enterprise Linux has exceeded our expectations....
Red Hat is almost like water, it's pervasive within our architecture. Red Hat is extremely strategic and without it, most of our computers wouldn't be running.
Linux isn't a price tag. It's a strategic decision to go for superior performance, flexibility, value, and innovation. The NYSE Euronext could have spent its money anywhere, but didn't. It went with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Linux is the new prime time.
UNIX...? Not so much.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
