"We started off running a proof of concept of open systems for Apache web hosting with government funding," Tony Betts, IT manager at the RCGP, told vnunet.com. "Running Apache on Windows with IIS alongside showed no improvement. When moved to Linux, the speed of response improved and emails went a lot quicker."

Sending 6,000 copies of a bulletin, which typically took days and tied up the server for the whole time, now runs in 15 to 20 minutes, according to Betts. Equally important, the RCGP was already concerned with Microsoft security, having discovered that a hacker in France was downloading data using FTP. This led to a security review which found, for instance, that Exchange was acting as a conduit for spam.