Posted on 09/09/2005 11:30:32 AM PDT by Bush2000
CIO Jury: Businesses give open source a reality check
IT bosses wary of hidden costs of moving to Linux…
By Andy McCue
Published: Thursday 1 September 2005
CIOs are still divided on whether the cost benefits of using open source software in a business IT infrastructure outweigh the risks.
Just this week Unilever said it has ditched a three-year plan to migrate its global IT infrastructure to a Linux platform, citing security issues, support costs and a competitive comeback from proprietary software vendors - though open source will be used in some instances.
silicon.com's 12-strong CIO jury user panel was split almost down the middle when asked if open source is any less attractive as an enterprise IT option than it was two years ago, with seven saying yes and five saying no.
Kirk Downey, CTO at Centrica, welcomed the influence the open source movement has had in forcing a new agenda based on competitiveness and interoperability but said there are still issues around compatibility with installed bases of legacy applications.
"At Centrica, although we have never formally committed to an 'open source' strategy, we continue to assess all possible technologies and investments against the value these can unleash for our business and shareholders. Why wouldn't we consider all possibilities the market has to offer, given parity in commercial criteria?" he asked.
But Ian Cohen, IT director at the Financial Times, said: "Competitive pricing of Unix environments, particularly with the emergence of Fujitsu as a highly credible alternative to Sun, combined with the growing maturity of virtualisation technologies in the Wintel space, is making open source a less attractive proposition for enterprise solutions."
Mark Devine, IT director at accountancy body Acca, said the cost savings through moving to Linux can only really be achieved if you are coming from a high price point to begin with and said re-training, integration, user resistance and support are still barriers to adoption for many organisations.
"Unless the benefits of open source are so significant nobody is going to remember that you saved the company 50 pence if two years later IT becomes a constraint on the company moving forward," he said.
The models for open source and proprietary products may be different but the total costs are not, according to Gavin Whatrup, IT director at Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners.
"IT leaders are probably realising that to really benefit from open source you have to be a part of it, and that takes a significant investment in both time and risk, which respectively we don't have and find hard to justify," he said.
One who has invested time in open source is JP Rangaswami, global CIO at investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, who said open source will continue to be attractive not because of the price but because of the flexibility, adaptability and mobility it provides.
"Free as in freedom, not free as in gratis. Democratised innovation is not an option. It is the only option and it is the only way," he said.
Rob Neil, head of ICT, Ashford Borough Council, said simply that the hype has disappeared and open source is now being looked at in the same way as other enterprise solutions on a more level playing field than two years ago.
Today's CIO Jury was…
Steve Anderson, European IT partner, Davis Langdon
Ian Cohen, IT director, Financial Times
Mark Devine, IT director, ACCA
Kirk Downey, CTO, Centrica
James Findlay, head of ICT, Maritime & Coastguard Agency
John Keeling, director of computer services, John Lewis Partnership
Andrew Leaning, IT director, Dod's Parliamentary Communications
Rob Neil, head of ICT, Ashford Borough Council
Simon Norbury, head of ICT, Westminster City Council
John Odell, IT director, BBA Group
JP Rangaswami, global CIO, DrKW
Gavin Whatrup, IT director, DLKW & Partners
I will say that while Open Source may be great for development tools, to put a company's business life in the hands of open source software doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense from a risk standpoint.
Open Source has become an attempt by Western corporations to kowtow to the PRC. The PRC do not want to pay for Western IP. Of course, once they have what they want, the Western corps will see very little revenue from the PRC.
It's also been a way for Europeans and Asians to suck commercial Unix IP dry.
OSS has uses in ways that are not the obvious.
OSS has uses in ways that are not the obvious.
+1 Insightful.
Anyone involved in purchasing who doesn't sit down with his Microsoft rep at renewal time and say, "ya know, we're in the process of a TCO study of Linux vs. Windows. We're interested in how you can help us with that." is absolutely nuts.
Any credible evidence of that?
RedHat (american), and Novell (american)
Whos the largest OSS solutions provider in the world?
IBM (american)
Oh yea the US is really getting the shaft on Linux...
Only the obvious you already know about - the Chicom government naming free copies of Linux their official O/S instead of purchasing US for-sale products. They take a free copy of Red Hat and rename it Red Flag. And yes, they are obligated to buy what we only sell, as terms of WTO membership.
You call this successful? ROFL!
SEC Probes Red Hat, Will Restate Results
http://www.nysscpa.org/home/2004/704/3week/article28.htm
Novell profit plunges
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/08/26/novell_profit_plunges_92/
Bloodbath at IBM - 13,000 Fired
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Bloodbath_at_IBM__________Fired&story_id=34260
GE: why do you call them ChiComs when you have stated youre not sure they are communist?
Typical lie from you. I said some US businessmen don't think of them as communist, with IBM leading the top of that list.
http://www.truthinmedia.org/truthinmedia/Bulletins/tim98-1-5.html
http://news.com.com/IBM+sought+a+China+partnership%2C+not+just+a+sale/2100-1042_3-5488288.html?tag=cd.top
Sounds like he drank the OSS kool-aid.
Basically what he's saying is anything but Microsoft will work here. But to justify the position he hides behind a slogan. Even if the closed source did everything he needed and was cheaper to install/run/maintain, he'd still go with OSS.
What's that got to do with "commercial Unix IP" as mentioned by B2K?
Zip, zilch, nada. You jumped in here without reading, just to take a cheap shot. How typical.
Exactly. Because some business requirements require sticking to established standards instead of a wink and a promise. You can't archive documents and expect to be able to read them in 100 years if the "standard" keeps changing every software release. So if Microsoft can't support the standard (and it can't -- because it must maintain some kind of lock-in leverage), it doesn't meet requirements, and some people will look elsewhere.
Yeah, because standards never change. But so what, OSS doesn't guarantee open standards, all it is is open source. There is a HUGE difference.
Think about it.
A whole lot. Companies like IBM are now investing in the Unix clone Linux that they must give away to China and other countries for free instead of building up their own proprietary Unix product. A billion dollars a year, minimum, by this one company alone is going into Linux. Are you claiming they are investing that much in their version of Unix? If you are, I'd like to see some proof.
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