When Akron-area Federal District Court Judge James Gwin ordered the small law firm of Willis & Linnen to file a case electronically this spring, the firm was forced to quickly come up to speed on the Internet. After all, it didn’t so much as have a Web page.
Initially, the firm’s principals shopped for some high-speed alternatives to connect to the Web. “They were very fast,” recalls partner Mark Willis, but with no speed requirement, he ultimately decided, “There’s no need to drive a Ferrari in a parking deck.”
Instead, with the help of Akron information-technology consultant Jeff Satterfield, the firm opted to employ the “open-source” software, Linux, to facilitate its connection to the Web. The firm’s new Linux server now sits quietly in its offices, out of sight.
“It’s in this little putty-colored box, sitting down in their basement. No one ever sees it or touches it. It’s not even in their computer room,” says Satterfield.
A subject of fascination among the computer geek subculture since hundreds of programmers around the world collaboratively cobbled it together under the loose direction of Finnish-born Linus Torvalds, Linux has more recently had a splashy introduction to the general public. This summer, a North Carolina company named Red Hat, which packages the otherwise free software on a CD-ROM and adds an instruction manual, went public, creating a number of paper millionaires.
Besides being free (downloadable at no cost from www.debian.org), Linux’s popularity has risen along with its reputation as a nearly crash-free alternative to the Windows, Macintosh and Unix operating systems. While the first fully usable version was released just five years ago, reputable industry estimates call for installations of the software to grow at a rate of about 25 percent a year over the next five years. That would mean that by 2003, its market penetration would be within striking distance of the vaunted Windows NT networking platform.
For his part, the 38-year-old Satterfield, a lifelong Akronite — who’s pained to admit that he was in the same Boy Scout troop as infamous mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer when the two were growing up in Bath — likes to think he has a three-year head start on the coming Linux boom. It was precisely three years ago this month that the former IT staffer for the economy hotel chain Knights Inn and the accounting firm SS&G first bumped into the then-novel software.
He’d recently left SS&G to strike out on his own as an independent consultant, when a client was in need of a networking solution that seemed to fit Linux’s strengths. Satterfield recalls “a lot of late nights” spent toying with the collaboratively created software, teaching himself the technology in the process of assembling a workable configuration for his client.
Of course, cutting-edge technology solutions, even the most reasonably priced, aren’t for everyone. Even with all the attention it’s been receiving, Linux is likely to retain its outlaw image among many business users for some time. A case in point: Satterfield laughs at a page from the Web site of the Cleveland Linux Users Group (www.cleveland.lug.net), where a slovenly self-proclaimed Linux master lounges in bed, his pet bird Hercules perched atop him. Not exactly the best advertisement for dependability in a business environment, he admits.
“I mean, do you want that couch potato in your business,” playing with your company’s IT family jewels? he asks rhetorically.
With that hesitation in mind, and perhaps also because competing software platforms are better for certain tasks, even confirmed Linux enthusiasts such as Satterfield continue to offer more familiar IT fixes to clients.
“We do [Windows] NT as a back-office solution. That’s because it’s a solution that’s understandable,” he says. If you tell people you’ve installed a Microsoft product in your business, “people won’t wrinkle their nose at a cocktail party,” he says.
In fact, the mixing and matching of various networking platforms probably matches the comfort level of many businesses these days. That’s been the case for 79-year-old Amer Insurance. The downtown Akron insurance agency, which specializes in property and casualty coverage, called on Satterfield to install a Linux system for front-end connectivity to the Web. But it continues to rely on more traditional platforms for other, even more vital, pieces of its network architecture, says executive vice president B.G. Labbe.
“We have a Novell server” for applications such as running credit checks, “and a Unix system for the agency’s internal management system. We’re insurance agents, not computer experts. But we’re pretty advanced in our technology,” says Labbe, who claims to know just enough about IT to be dangerous, but also knows when to summon an expert.
It wasn’t too long ago that Labbe’s young nephew was constructing Amer’s Web site. Now, through the Linux server, Amer has taken a considerable leap in sophistication, beginning to perform some basic customer service transactions, such as soliciting client policy changes and application forms, through its Web site. Satterfield heartily approves.
“If a business owner is not looking at Web-enabled applications as we go to the 21st century, they’re going to be screwed. They’re going to lose sales as a result.”
And Satterfield thinks that, against the backdrop of that new competitive pressure, Linux will win more than its share of that emerging Web-solution market. The popular attention from the Red Hat IPO has helped, but perhaps even more important in demystifying it has been the recent decisions of large industry players such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard to climb aboard with their own Linux applications and pledges to support the software.
For all its funky reputation in the corporate market, Satterfield thinks Linux’s cost advantage, coupled with its growing reputation for reliability, will slowly but steadily win business converts.
“You can just set it up and leave it,” he says. “I have clients who haven’t touched their Linux box in months. It seems like you’re [fixing] an NT box every 30 days.”
How to reach: Jeff Satterfield (330) 666-7897, www.sattco.com
John Ettorre ([email protected]) is a contributing editor at SBN.
