[luau] NEWS: Why Linux Made Inroads At Financial Institutions

[Warren Togami]

Why Linux Made Inroads At Financial Institutions 
http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020403003064

When the loss of about 1,000 computer servers in the World Trade Center
attacks put Lehman Brothers in the market to buy millions of dollars of
systems, it looked at a slightly unorthodox option: Linux, an operating
system that is as noteworthy for its speed as for the fact that its
source code is free.

Now that it has tested a Linux system in-house, Lehman plans to replace
about half of the lost servers with ones that use this technology.

"We want to push as much as we can into that space," said Bridget
O'Connor, a Lehman senior vice president and its global head of
architecture and engineering technology.

While Lehman has not yet signed a contract to install Linux, its testing
showed that the system runs about twice as fast as its existing server
system at roughly one-quarter of the cost, Ms. O'Connor said. "So where
we needed 24, now we need 12 -- that's compelling."
(continued in article)