So why did Allied Irish, Ireland's leading bank, scrap their tellers' Windows machines and switch to GNU/Java desktops? Why are Credit Suisse, First Boston, Lehman Brothers, and Koelner Bank also running with the GNU? You don't need an MBA to figure this one out: Faster, because the boxes can be stripped down to just those applications the tellers use, cheaper because there's no downtime from virus attacks, because they can control the environment and because it needs only the hardware sufficient to the task at hand, and better, because of a lot of reasons ...

"The security of open source is simply better than the commercial solutions, Linux is more comprehensive and works better with virus scanners than commercial solutions. We're running three virus scanners, and paying for one."

"If anything, they are safer overall, because all the code is peer-reviewed, so to speak. The collaborative finds problems before the hackers even know they exist."

[ Source: Linux making strides in financial services sector ]