Information Week is reporting that GNU/Linux is heading for even more mainstream adoption in 2003. “Linux already is mainstream at Cendant Corp. The real-estate, travel-services, and hospitality holding company has 7,000 hotels, and there's nothing more mission critical than efficiently managing check-ins, departures, payments, and reservations. About 60% of the hotels use a property-management system from Hotel Software Systems Ltd. that runs on a Linux distribution from SCO Group, even though Cendant offers Windows-based property-management software.”
One of Linux's greatest assets is the worldwide network of open-source programmers that keep developing features and capabilities. Open Source Initiative, a nonprofit company that certifies open-source software, estimates that 4 million to 27 million programmers are working on open-source software.
Another asset is growing support from hardware vendors, including Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun Microsystems. Worldwide shipments of Linux servers grew 47%, from 72,126 units in the third quarter of 2001 to 105,849 units in the third quarter of 2002, according to Gartner research. In contrast, Windows server shipments grew 7.2% during that same time period — but that amounted to more than 1 million Windows servers.