17 May 2002 News organisation Reuters is to move its financial information software to run on the open source operating system Linux in conjunction with Linux distributor Red Hat, chip giant Intel and systems vendor Hewlett-Packard.

The Reuters Market Data System (RMDS) runs on both workstations and servers and provides financial markets workers with up-to-date financial statistics and news. Large financial organisations such as investment bank Morgan Stanley are customers.

Until now, these organisations have tended to deploy this system on servers based on the Unix operating systems from Sun Microsystems. Running it on Intel-based servers running Linux will allow them to benefit from reduced hardware costs. Reuters plans to offer the software on Hewlett-Packard hardware based on Intel Xeon and Itanium II processors, according to reports in the US technology press.

The move adds further credibility to the Linux operating system as a platform for core applications in major corporations. Investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston also uses Linux-based servers to run its financial software.