Linux Wars: IT Industry at a Crossroads

by Robert D. Austin, The Cutter Business Technology Council

Over the next year or two, the IT industry will reassert customer-empowering trends based on open standards by embracing Linux and other open source software. In the long run, this outcome will benefit everyone, even vendors with much to lose should open source prevail. The alternative outcome, a significant retreat from open standards, would yield too much power to incumbent firms over the speed of industry innovation.