Hospital software vendor McKesson uses Linux to heal IT budgets

"Red Hat estimated that health care facilities that have switched have been able to save as much as 60% on IT costs compared with what they were spending before.

With the Red Hat/McKesson systems, hospitals and medical offices run their back-office infrastructure on Red Hat Linux, while their front-end clients use Microsoft Windows -- at least for now, Simpson said. 'Our hospitals aren't ready yet for Linux on the desktop, but it's coming' in another three or four years, he said. 'If you look at the total costs of hospitals and the pressure on hospitals to continue to lower their costs, it's coming.'"