November 18, 2008 at 1:09 am
But then you would say that, surely? I mean, you're not exactly independent...
November 18, 2008 at 4:05 am
I would think that the software as a service model... or newly labeled cloud computing may benefit more from the economy than open source. Depending on the service packages that become available businesses could spend less in a year and not have to employ the technical support/developers.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the next 18 - 24 months. The winners of this period of time will be those who offer purchasing, delivery and support options that are creative and new.
November 18, 2008 at 6:28 am
I'm neither for nor against open source. I personally do not use linux because I really don't have the time to learn how to administer it, I have enough trouble keeping current with SQL Server. I think the downside to open-source is that you are depending on a community to support the product. With Windows or SQL Server, if I have a major problem I can call support and hopefully get an answer. I know you can purchase support for MySQL and Linux, but then it's not "free" anymore. I think you need to use products that you can support in-house. If you are a Windows/SQL Server shop you probably don't want to switch to MySQL or Oracle.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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November 18, 2008 at 6:40 am
I'm not sure you can link the OpenSource movement to the economic downturn directly - though I believe there may be some connection. Microsoft themselves are, to some companies, sealing their own doom not only with Vista, but with Office 2007.
One of our companies specializes in conversions and migrations and though business is going well, we have seen a trend developing where some (and a growing number of) IT decision makers are shunning the entire scope of Office 2007 products. Microsoft has been banking on the backbone of XML to drive the interoperability of their Office products (and more). But as some are more-than-aware, there are many who see XML as bulky, clunky, way too overly complex for what it does, and most of all a great leap backwards in interoperability. Sure, as Microsoft goes, so goes the world, but with almost 30 years in the business I am very surprised at what I am seeing and hearing in the field. There are always complaints about MS, but these are now in many cases, becoming a lot more than mere whining.
We have been surprised that some companies tell us they will not be converting to Office 2007 and will be giving strong consideration to the OpenSource world. One oft-heard reason is Microsoft's dropping of version control in the 2007 suite - its no longer supported. Another complaint is the alteration of formats in Word, Excel and Access files poses simply too much risk to huge bases of software documents and sub-systems. Yet another oft-heard complaint is the great alteration in the interface in Office 2007 - it just presents way too steep a learning curve for companies with thousands of workers used to older versions. There are these and many other valid complaints out there, brewing up a potential storm.
Although it is not yet a torrent, there is a steady drumbeat growing where IT decision makers are considering OpenSource like never before. I hear these comments tied to Microsoft's failure more than any economic reasons. Vista is considered largely doomed, and Office 2007 appears as though it might go the same way to a growing number of large companies unwilling to trust Microsoft's vision anymore.
As a former IBM-er, OpenSource can work but its marketing that I think has always staved that off. That is, MS has the huge marketing power that historically has been the wall to OpenSource. That wall seems now, often crumbling. So, the economy might be playing a role here, but I think more, its Microsoft's vision that has really gone awry in the eyes of a growing number of professionals and companies.
November 18, 2008 at 6:47 am
I think that the problem goes all the way down to philosophical principles. On a high level, it's capitalism vs more socialistic views of the world. Are you better off with idealistic stuff produced for 'free' by idealists, or are you better off with something that's making money for somebody? I think you're going to get better quality in the long run when somebody's career is based on the product working correctly and meeting the needs of the purchaser and the market. This doesn't make products based on capitalistic principles perfect (of course!) but it answers business questions like:
-Are the people who make this product going to be around for a long time?
-Is there a large pool of people who know how to make it work?
-Does the product function to strict standards as opposed to variations introduced by every user?
Businesses are usually better off making the investment in products with a support structure, even if times are lean right now. Better to do things that Steve is suggesting like putting off an upgrade or increasing hardware-replacement cycles than moving your whole operation to software that may not be around in a few years.
P.S. This is why Microsoft needs to stress quality, performance, and support over new features. We're paying for stuff that's supposed to work. Free stuff starts looking very attractive when expensive stuff is perceived as having low quality. And please stop making changes in the interface just for change sake - it's scaring people away...
___________________________________________________
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”
November 18, 2008 at 7:07 am
I work for a small company that develops java applications, mostly in the financial integration sector. For us open source is a natural (and really the only sensible) choice; try and find a java application that doesn't include libraries from the apache foundation, for instance. You'll have a hard time.
I think you're going to get better quality in the long run when somebody's career is based on the product working correctly and meeting the needs of the purchaser and the market.
I don't agree. Products are being released before they are ready all the time because the marketing people had already arranged the launch party and VP John had promised SVP Jill that it would be out on time. Open source projects do not need to do that exactly because no career is at stake; they can afford to say 'no, its not ready' and delay the release.
For open source projects the driving force is not money but instead two things : 1. a product that the developers can use themselves and 2. pride in a product that is as good as possible.
November 18, 2008 at 7:09 am
Jack Corbett (11/18/2008)
If you are a Windows/SQL Server shop you probably don't want to switch to MySQL or Oracle.
I wholeheartedly agree. The core software of a business or department should not be changed; unless the company is prepared for a massive investment in training and accompanying downtime. I think Steve is right when he brings up 'applications' though. There are numerous little tools that an IT department can come to depend on outside of core business operations: help desk ticket software, remote desktop alternatives (if not RDP), presentation software, etc. There are sleek, stable open source alternatives to the proprietary material that dominates these sorts of needs. It is in these areas where open source can make the most headway, since it can save on a budget without the kind of personnel expenditure or risk that swapping out core systems would entail.
Economy or not, saving money seems like good business practice to me. 😀
November 18, 2008 at 7:25 am
For open source projects the driving force is not money but instead two things : 1. a product that the developers can use themselves and 2. pride in a product that is as good as possible.
I appreciate your perspective, but I'm afraid you've just made my point. When developers run shops, they're notorious for producing a lot of things that look and feel great for developers but which don't meet the needs of a changing market ("Hey, why did we ever leave DOS? - We don't need all of that fancy User Interface nonsense! Any person with a brain can just memorize line commands..."). We don't need perfect buggy whips, but that's what we would have if carriage makers controlled the transportation industry. I think too that we're forgetting what Microsoft has given us: a dominant platform. I remember well the days of Atari, Commodore, Radio shack and others. Anyone who wrote software had to make it for numerous, diverse platforms. And if the company you're working for goes out of business, that's it. It's hard to find work when you're writing in languages that aren't supported anymore for hardware that doesn't exist. If Microsoft ever goes down (and it surely will someday) it will do so after moving computers from the labs of scientists and hobbyists into the hands of average people and after creating a lot of high-paying jobs for developers like us. When it does go down I hope we won't go back to the days of every-man-for-himself. Open source has the potential of taking us back there fast.
___________________________________________________
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”
November 18, 2008 at 9:17 am
I doubt I'm more biased than anyone else that doesn't work for a vendor of a platform, or doesn't belive in Open Source.
I've made my living off SQL Server, but I've looked at the alternatives at times, and there is nothing wrong with them. Sometimes they fit, sometimes they don't, but in any case, whether you were going from .NET to Java or back, the skills of the people should play an impact on things.
November 18, 2008 at 10:43 pm
When people say "Open Source", they don't really care if it's "Open Source" or not... they just want "free".
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
November 20, 2008 at 3:28 am
Good point Jeff - not many users of MySQL, for example, know or care that it is Open Sauce, never mind ever look at the sauce code. Having said that, how many of us would really reap any benefit from looking at the sauce code?
In terms of licence fees, when you start rolling out dozens of VMs, remember that each VM running a Windows OS will need a licence. VMs are often used to separate out services into separate OSs to prevent any interoperability problems. This can greatly increase the number of OSs you need, and thus the cost.
A Linux VM costs you nothing in licence fees. That alone could save a lot of cash.
Andy
November 20, 2008 at 10:55 am
Having worked in shops with mixed (Linux/Microsoft) and single (Microsoft) environments, adopted open source projects and developed in-house solutions, and worked with SQL Server and MySql I see advantages and disadvantages of each approach. While the initial up-front costs are usually lower with open source solutions I have found that over time those advantages tend to disappear. In my experience, for example with an open source CRM system, while the UI was powerful and appealing to the end users, the lack of documentation, non-optimal implementation details, and cryptic responses to support requests wound up costing many more hours (man months) in engineering resources than initially expected. In general once you have to start modifying the underlying application - and most open source products that I have used have been lacking in the functionality we required, although most have been good foundations that we were able to expand on - you start running up the engineering hours, and often wind up with a final product that does not have the performance of the one you would have built from scratch.
If you are not looking for someone else to have built your business application then there certainly are some offerings such as source code repositories (Subversion for example), bug tracking applications, and the dot Lucene search engine that are powerful applications which can be used with no modifications and quickly add productivity for free.
I am not impressed with MySql as I have experienced table corruption on more than one occasion and the lack of functionality requires more work arounds than using SQL Express (if you want a free database solution).
As long as you have to have an IT staff to maintain your systems, then the costs savings of open source over the long run tend, in my experience, to disappear. And while running 'cheap' Linux systems sounds appealing, most likely you still need in-house IT expertise that can support Windows systems as the clerical, sales, and management teams usually are not going to have Linux on their desktop. I agree with others that the cloud concept will likely eliminate some of the initial cost advantages for running open source systems and should help in reducing the long term in-house IT costs.
November 24, 2008 at 11:07 am
Nice post above. It highlights some interesting things.
I'd still think that if you started with a good Open Source solution, you might end up with something better in the long run with a good staff. You can definitely make changes that you need to make, or improve the performance of things as you find issues. That's not something you can do with closed source packages.
Of course then you often end up branching and building your own solutions, which is fine if you want to do that. If that's the case, perhaps you want to just do that at the beginning.
December 11, 2008 at 6:21 am
blandry (11/18/2008)
I'm not sure you can link the OpenSource movement to the economic downturn directly - though I believe there may be some connection. Microsoft themselves are, to some companies, sealing their own doom not only with Vista, but with Office 2007.One of our companies specializes in conversions and migrations and though business is going well, we have seen a trend developing where some (and a growing number of) IT decision makers are shunning the entire scope of Office 2007 products. Microsoft has been banking on the backbone of XML to drive the interoperability of their Office products (and more). But as some are more-than-aware, there are many who see XML as bulky, clunky, way too overly complex for what it does, and most of all a great leap backwards in interoperability. Sure, as Microsoft goes, so goes the world, but with almost 30 years in the business I am very surprised at what I am seeing and hearing in the field. There are always complaints about MS, but these are now in many cases, becoming a lot more than mere whining.
We have been surprised that some companies tell us they will not be converting to Office 2007 and will be giving strong consideration to the OpenSource world. One oft-heard reason is Microsoft's dropping of version control in the 2007 suite - its no longer supported. Another complaint is the alteration of formats in Word, Excel and Access files poses simply too much risk to huge bases of software documents and sub-systems. Yet another oft-heard complaint is the great alteration in the interface in Office 2007 - it just presents way too steep a learning curve for companies with thousands of workers used to older versions. There are these and many other valid complaints out there, brewing up a potential storm.
Although it is not yet a torrent, there is a steady drumbeat growing where IT decision makers are considering OpenSource like never before. I hear these comments tied to Microsoft's failure more than any economic reasons. Vista is considered largely doomed, and Office 2007 appears as though it might go the same way to a growing number of large companies unwilling to trust Microsoft's vision anymore.
As a former IBM-er, OpenSource can work but its marketing that I think has always staved that off. That is, MS has the huge marketing power that historically has been the wall to OpenSource. That wall seems now, often crumbling. So, the economy might be playing a role here, but I think more, its Microsoft's vision that has really gone awry in the eyes of a growing number of professionals and companies.
Red Hat and anyone that sells a Linux distro offers support. Red Hat Enterprise Server is around $800 a year for phone support during business hours. Linux is written by professional programmers at IBM, Red Hat, Sun and all the other brand name tech companies
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