Lowering Total Cost of Ownership through Linux

While Windows use may be falling on the desktop, Microsoft still holds approximately a 90% market share in the desktop OS market. The enterprise server market is a different story. Linux actually has a higher market share than Windows when it comes to Web servers and dominates the supercomputer market. And the vast majority of enterprises utilizing Linux servers have plans to add more.

Linux was created in the 1990s as an open source alternative to Windows and Unix. As a result, there is technically no cost to download and run a Linux OS. That said, there are hundreds of distros (packaged versions) of Linux available from vendors like Red Hat and Ubuntu, which are often sold along with professional services designed to make implementation smoother. However, purchasing and installing an enterprise version of Linux is still typically considerably cheaper than purchasing an enterprise Windows or Unix system, which can involve user-based licensing and expensive security add-ons.

In addition to software savings, Linux offers hardware savings, especially over UNIX systems, which typically require proprietary servers. In addition to reducing server infrastructure costs, a 2014 study by IDC found that enterprise Linux reduces operating costs significantly related to IT staffing. It also increases user productivity—due to reduced downtime and fewer security issues.

And savings related to Linux deployments are increasing, as more IT professionals are becoming familiar with the Linux platform. Additionally, standardizing and spreading the use of Linux in an organization helps reduce TCO even further as it increases economies of scale.

As IT environments increasingly move away from a Windows-centric desktop driven paradigm, to more server-centric Web-based and mobile-driven deployments, moving to Linux makes even more sense. Even Microsoft has acknowledged the momentum of Linux by recently introducing a version of SQL Server that can run on Linux, as well as some other Linux initiatives.

So, why shouldn’t document capture be able to run on Linux as well? Ephesoft certainly thinks it should be able to, which is why we built our intelligent document recognition platform from day one to run either on Windows or Linux. The TWAIN Working Group, which maintains the leading standard for connecting document scanners to capture applications, has also introduced support for Linux.

Traditionally document capture has been deployed in a Windows-centric, client/server environment. But as IT environments evolve, capture needs to evolve with them to stay relevant. Especially, as paper volumes decrease, the TCO for capture needs to decrease as well. This will keep the cost-per-document from increasing. Moving your capture environment to Linux is one way to help accomplish this.