Cost-Conscious Companies Turn to Open-Source Software

Business Week ^ | December 1, 2008, 12:01AM EST | Rachael King

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

As the recession puts pressure on tech spending, many companies are turning to open-source software to handle more IT tasks

After the tech bubble burst, E*Trade's technology chief, Lee Thompson, needed to find a way to do more with less. In 2001 and 2002, the online stock trading company shrank its tech budget by one-third. "We had to go through and figure out every penny that we were spending…and make alternatives to reduce those costs," says Thompson, vice-president and chief technologist of E*Trade (ETFC). So he began using software that can be downloaded at no cost via the Internet. By the end of 2002, he was saving $13 million a year thanks to use of these freely available applications known as open-source software, and the fact that he could run that software on less expensive hardware .

It's 2001 all over again.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[oh8eleven]

It's 2001 all over again.
Sure looks like it is for E*Trade.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Sure looks like it is for E*Trade.

Seems like there might be a lesson in there somewhere - maybe that saving money on software purchase costs [by e.g. refusing to pony up the money for potentially superior software] does NOT NECESSARILY imply a long term increase in share values?

[relictele]

Note to self: close E-Trade account since they will have no paid tech support to rely on when things get hairy and like so many open-source shops will descend into headless-chicken chaos.

[oh8eleven]

Note to self: close E-Trade account ...
I've had an E*Trade account for many years, but I've essentially closed it because their service has become terrible.
I tried to open a bank account this past summer, along with a couple of CDs. They botched it so bad I ended up with Countrywide bank.

[ShadowAce]

[stainlessbanner]

55,000 customers logged in at once to Etrade.com, the highest level in the past five years.

55k is pretty low for a large scale system isn't it? FR might come close for concurrent users. Regardless, sites like yahoo, google, etc prob have millions of concurrent user sessions going.

[B Knotts]

potentially superior software

LOL

"Potentially" is the operative word.

Like it or not, as open source software continues to mature in particular categories, it will be adopted by anyone with enough of a clue to not continue to throw away money on unnecessary licensing fees.

For industry-specific tasks, that will remain largely proprietary for the foreseeable future.

Just because you choose to use some open source stuff, doesn't mean you can't also use proprietary software where it makes more sense.