The major IT companies seemed to react to the call made by the Communications Ministry of Japan to the government to use Linux operating systems and now they plan to set up a consortium that will sell servers and systems running the Linux operating system in Japan.

The start will be given by Oracle Japan which intends to launch the operation next month and big players on the servers market, such as Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, NTT Data or Dell, are expected to get involved. Technology companies like IBM or NEC are also expected to join the group.

Considering the numerous advantages brought by the open source Linux operating systems, there is no doubt about the reasons that reside in the ministry's procurement guidelines drawn to call the government to use Linux. Linux is the most outstanding example of free software and open source development. It is also quite portable, as it comes with source code to the kernel and it also runs on many platforms. It is a multi-tasking operating system which uses complex memory management for controlling the system processes.

But the most important aspect regarding Linux would be the fact that it is not predisposed to the virus attacks. So far, only two viruses are known to have been effective on Linux. Another interesting fact is that thousands of people work on the development of new features every day and they provide high quality tools and packages once with any new distribution.