Embracing Open Source and Free Software

The lure of free software is definitely appealing for most CIOs from a cost perspective, but that's not the only thing to keep in mind

Saturday, March 01, 2008

What would be your reaction to the growing popularity of Open Source and free software? Would you ignore it like another passing fad, or would you take it seriously enough to at least take a quick glance at it? If the opinions of the 75+ different organizations we surveyed this time are anything to go by, then it makes sense to do the latter.

We surveyed a cross section of CIOs from across the country to determine their adoption plans and future strategies for using Open Source and free software. This helped us gauge the general understanding and acceptability levels of Open Source and free software across Indian enterprises. Needless to say, the results were quite interesting, if you look at all the graphs.

For one, Open Source and free software needs no introduction in Indian organizations. The ratio of organizations using it versus those who were not using it stood at nearly 70:30. Further, Open Source based email solutions topped the charts in current usage amongst the organizations we surveyed, as 43% of them were already using it. Next in line were databases and Internet gateways at 30 and 27%. Surprisingly, Linux on desktops seems to have gained momentum, with 25% of the respondents already using it.

Future adoption of Open Source also looks very promising, with 72% of the respondents saying they're actively considering deploying the same in the near future. Interestingly, 44% of them said that they're planning to deploy Open Source based network monitoring and management solutions in the near future. If you're also one of them, then you should definitely try our network management and security appliance, which we've given with PCQ Linux 2008. Even more interesting was the fact that another 39% were planning to deploy Linux on desktops. This is very interesting, considering that Linux at the desktop was not a very popular choice in the recent past. Email solutions stood at third place, followed by Internet gateway/proxy, firewall, database, and even unified communication. The interest in deploying business specific Open Source solutions like ERP/CRM, or collaboration, etc is still lower as compared to infrastructure related tools.

If you're also planning to delve into Open Source software, then it's important to understand the key benefits and challenges you're likely to face on this path. Today, another advantage is that you can look at Open Source solutions for more than basic infrastructure requirements. Many business applications also exist in the Open Source world, but in order to consider those, a number of things need to be kept in mind.

Betting your business critical apps to run on Open Source
Would you bet your business critical apps to run on Open Source as easily as you would on closed source? This is a pertinent question to ask today, because of the plethora of business critical applications available in the Open Source world. For instance, we did a small search on sourceforge.net and found that there were 600+ ERP and CRM projects each available for download. We say projects because not all of them would be fully working ERP solutions. Many would be at various stages of development. Likewise, there are projects for business intelligence, data warehousing, workflow, project management, and much more.

Given so much choice, and all of it freely downloadable, you'd think that organizations would be falling over each other to try them all out. In our survey however, the responses were mixed on the subject. Almost 60% of them said that they would not bet their business critical apps to run on Open Source as easily as they would on a closed source application. The primary reason that emerged for the same-support. Most organizations were quite wary of the kind of support that would be available for Open Source based apps. Security, reliability, and interoperability were some of the other reasons for not using Open Source for business critical apps.

Moving to the other side, there are quite a few organizations successfully running Open Source based business critical apps. Forty percent of our respondents said they were already on it. We saw examples ranging from an ERP deployment or a CRM solution, to even online solutions to handle financial transactions, all running on Open Source apps.

To make it all happen, a number of things are required. One of course is to get committed support from a vendor, and that too over a long period of time. Today, some of the leading and well known vendors offer support for Open Source apps. The thing to check is whether the vendor would be able to offer the support across all your office locations. Second of course is to ensure that you get regular upgrades and updates for the software.

Lastly, irrespective of whether you choose an Open Source or a closed source business application, you will have to pay for the support.

Page(s)   1  2