"We've had IBM techs come out and I didn't tell them it wasn't Red Hat and they went ahead and updated it as if it was," Wheatley said, adding the company was severely over-licensed with Microsoft products and even bought them to ensure its 'safety'.

Arrow is in the testing stage of an SAP ERP migration from Windows to Linux involving three servers. The two systems are running in parallel and will be cut over to production Linux at the end of the year as "it's looking really good".

There are no plans to move to Linux on the desktop as "we're a very archaic organization in many ways and it would take time", but the system administrators run it on their desktops.

"We are using Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory so it would be a big migration from the Windows desktop," Wheatley said. "The IT manager was initially mistrustful, but quickly noticed the stability. Some people still believe open source is less secure, but you just need to prove them wrong."

Arrow has also adopted the Common Unix Printing System, or CUPS, to prevent losing SAP's barcoded dockets.