Japanese companies and engineers are well known for their ability to design, create and manufacture ingenious, small, technically complex products. In the IT industry, they are also often known for their creative approach to doing things and using tools and software not commonly seen in Europe and in the US. Linux offers many benefits for countries that have specific needs for software and operating systems and require modifications to standard software.
Japanese companies and engineers are well known for their ability to design, create and manufacture ingenious, small, technically complex products. In the IT industry, they are also often known for their creative approach to doing things and using tools and software not commonly seen in Europe and in the US. For example, Microsoft Exchange, the worlds leading e-mail system in companies, does not enjoy the same success in Japan, which has also become one of the leading countries to adopt Linux. Linux offers many benefits for countries that have specific needs for software and operating systems and require modifications to standard software. In Linux, all source code is freely accessible, which makes it easy to modify. Linux is fast and cheap, and will run on lower-specification hardware than many other modern operating systems, making it an ideal platform for many new devices and solutions. There is also a large volume of free software available for Linux, from which you can develop proprietary solutions. Most importantly, Linux is widely used in servers today as it is known to be stable and offers very good performance. At the margins of network infrastructures especially, Linux has already become the preferred operating system for many companies.
Linux has also become an important part of F-Secures solution strategy. An increasing number of customers are demanding products that can also run on Linux. In particular, gateway content scanning products, scanning email and web traffic, are increasingly run on Linux, mainly for reasons of performance, stability and cost. This trend is most visible in Japan, where the sales growth of F-Secures Windows-based gateway solutions has been moderate, while sales of F-Secures Linux-based gateway solutions have multiplied during the years. Nihon F-Secure Corporation, F-Secures Japanese country office, is actually one of the fastest growing sections in F-Secure, and a strong leader in the Linux business. In Europe and the US, adoption of Linux has been slower than in Asia, but the trend is clearly the same.
The recently released F-Secure Internet Gatekeeper for Linux is a great example of a solution that customers currently run on Linux. This product automatically and transparently scans HTTP, SMTP, FTP and POP traffic for viruses and spam at network level and can be implemented easily and without high cost in organisations of any size. This product is already in widespread use in Japan, and is employed by several large enterprise customers, as well as e-mail and web service providers to protect their customers. This product is now available in all regions where F-Secure operates. Linux is also making its way onto desktops, and so F-Secure has introduced new centrally manageable, transparent and automatic security products for Linux workstations and servers. F-Secure Anti-Virus Linux Client and Server Security provides real-time virus scanning, a centrally managed desktop firewall and system integrity verification. F-Secures Linux support also covers the management system, the F-Secure Policy Manager.
Jyrki Tulokas, Business Manager
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