Moreover, banks are naturally risk-adverse because of the importance of maintaining consumer trust, according to Grealish. 'Until it's tried and really true, banks are not going to go there,' she said.

KeyBank is an exception. Dave Seager, vice president of Unix systems engineering at the KeyCorp unit, said KeyBank bought 100 Intel-based servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux from Hewlett-Packard Co. last year. The servers are being used to replace Unix systems hosting, among other things, Oracle databases and IBM's WebSphere application server software.

'In the last year, Linux has gone from 'unapproved for use in the building' to our platform of choice,' said Seager, who spoke about KeyBank's Linux plans at Red Hat Inc.'s user conference last spring.

The Linux deployment has helped KeyBank keep its own balance sheet healthy. It spent US$1 million on Linux servers last year, saving about 80 percent compared with what it had been spending on comparable systems, Seager said.

The savings have won over KeyBank executives who initially were hesitant about the move, Seager said. 'Telling them Linux was cool or the new thing didn't translate very well,' he said. 'Saying it saved x percent of our budget translated very well.'