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"This is a crucial decision for Iona," Daniel Mauerhofer, Iona's Director for European Communications, said.
Iona, which has its headquarters in Dublin, expects the decision will allow users to quickly deploy Linux applications with mainframe class characteristics.
Linux is an open-source operating system, which can be utilised to run everything from handheld and embedded systems to clusters of hundreds of servers and mainframes. Use of Linux is currently growing 35 percent a year and is expected to maintain this pace of growth until 2004, according to analyst firm IDC.
"There is no way around Linux anymore," Mauerhofer added. "This decision was coming for while."
John Looney, who founded the Irish Linux User Group four years ago and was its chairman until two months ago, says Iona's decision is "reasonably important." He added: "The decision makes sense, because everyone is moving to Linux these days. I would say that this is more important to Iona's clients than it is to Linux users."
According to Looney it is estimated that there are currently 20 million Linux users worldwide.
Joann Duguid, Director of Linux marketing for IBM eServer zSeries said IBM's customers are using Linux now to combine their disparate systems under one platform.
IBM has been a particularly strong supporter of Linux in recent months, and Maurice Martin, Iona's Director of Enterprise Integration Products, said that Linux is gaining widespread adoption among corporate users to run IBM mainframe systems.
"[Linux] will be strategic for many organisations moving forward," Martin said.
Many companies rely heavily on mainframe systems such as IBM's z900 and S/390 platforms to power their critical business applications and require an integration platform that addresses the importance of the mainframe platform in their e-business strategy, Iona said.
Iona is at http://www.iona.com
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