Why Open Source
All software is built with source code. ‘Open Source’ means the code is open and you can see it, change it, and learn from it – returning control to your customers and allowing bugs to be found and fixed quickly.
The economic downturn is accelerating the adoption of open source software (OSS). Research by IDC shows that customers are becoming more practical in considering the value of OSS when buying and implementing new applications, as open source gives organisations a high-quality product with lower total cost of ownership.
Open source enables businesses to dramatically reduce expenditures in the following ways:
- Deploy commodity hardware
The ability to use commodity hardware such as Intel x86 systems rather than proprietary machines represents the largest cost-saving opportunity.
- Eliminate pricey maintenance contracts
Annual maintenance fees on proprietary software drive up total cost of ownership (TCO), whereas open source products generally include updates and maintenance as part of the pricing model.
- Get more functionality, reliability, and higher performance than comparable proprietary products
Not only do businesses typically get more functionality from open source products, but they tend to be more reliable and higher performing than proprietary counterparts; allowing customers to do more with less.
- Increase worker productivity
The quick learning curve coupled with the availability of sophisticated management and administrative tools allow businesses to allocate fewer personnel to routine support tasks.
- Avoid vendor lock-in
Businesses can find themselves held captive to license and maintenance contracts from proprietary software vendors. Because of the interoperability of open source, businesses have an ‘easy out’ when it comes to moving to a different open source product.
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