"Our customers call up our support line and go, 'It's all broken, your software sucks, we hate you,'" Finch says. "But when you dig in, you find that the failure is Windows and the fact that someone installed a video game on the machine."
Freedom of Choice
At the end of the day, many ISVs simply cite choice as driving their Linux decisions. By adding Linux to their repertoire, they expand their footprint while affording customers the option of running applications on any type of hardware or app server. So, if the small business grows and needs to scale up from Intel servers to, say, IBM iSeries, they can do that quite painlessly when the boxes run Linux. Not so simple if you run .Net apps on top of Windows Server 2003 and decide you need mainframe power.
At AccPac, Downing says they couldn't ignore the business appeal. Today, 20 percent of AccPac's customers run their accounting suite on Linux, and the number is continuing to grow. Notably, he says AccPac's applications perform better on Linux, too.
"Linux done right requires an investment from you in terms of services and support," he says. "But what you get in the end is a more secure, stable environment and applications that are not controlled by any single entity."
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