Old School to Open – Change of guard

I have been working with a leading Open Source ECM SI for a while now as a business analyst and a pre-sales consultant. It’s been a very interesting phase in terms of the sort of concerns the prospects have, convey and our concern alleviation methods.

Open source is increasingly mainstream, but getting value from it, whether you’re a vendor or buyer, is still more art than science. Open source has thrived throughout the recession, providing low-cost, high-value solutions that appeal to CIOs faced with tight budgets. Red Hat and other open source companies have helped their customers weather the storm of the global recession. With the economic recovery now well underway, the time is ripe to re-examine plans for technology deployments as many companies start investing in new IT projects.

Businesses have had decades of experience in acquiring software directly, on hardware, in services engagements, and through system integrators. The interoperability, flexibility, affordability and countless other benefits that open source and open standards deliver will be key as companies look for IT solutions that solve 21st century business problems. Customers want to leverage emerging technologies like cloud computing, virtualization and java. Old school technology practices – fraught with hidden lock-in and expense – can’t compete with the value that open source delivers.

As more and more organizations consider using open source, it’s important to uniformly hold all acquired software to high standards regarding quality, security, performance, and value for money spent in acquisition, support, and maintenance. Additionally, open source software adds questions about inclusiveness, governance, and longevity of communities.