Ironically, although Linux is modular and designed to be customized, relatively few organizations take advantage of the capability because of the support issue.

Linux vendors are addressing that by improving the granularity of their packages to enable buyers to take existing Linux building blocks and apply them in different combinations based on each user's needs. Linux's modular architecture is ideal for creating JeOS because it can be easily stripped down and modified.

Mass customization leverages the cost benefits and efficiencies of mass production, coupled with the ability to tailor an OS for different use cases. And because this tailoring is achieved through the arrangement of standard Linux components, it is fully supported.

And there are many other benefits:

* Simplified deployment. Tailoring the OS for a specific need results in a slimmed-down product that is easier to deploy. In the JeOS model, the time needed for testing and deployment can shrink from weeks to minutes. A preconfigured, self-contained package with no external dependencies is easy to transfer through testing into the production environment, and is highly portable between virtual environments, making it beneficial for disaster recovery and other scenarios.