Open source and the future of vendor-free IT

(Credit: IDC)

In reading through IDC's excellent report, "2007 Industry Adoption of Open Source Software, Part 2: Project Adoption," analyst Matt Lawton stumbles across an intriguing observation in open-source software adoption. He apparently believes it is a weakness of the current open-source landscape, but I believe it is a strength.

The observation? That IT departments do most of the services around open source, rather than third-party consulting companies.

Matt writes:

The shocking result here is the complete dearth of service providers that are currently being tapped for installation, training, and other services associated with open source software, regardless of where in the software stack that software sits. Less than 1% of the projects have attendant services sourced from service providers.

And these services are needed -- only 21% of the projects did not require attendant services. Service providers, the natural third-party source of attendant services in the proprietary software world, are virtually nonexistent in the open source world. With 68% of open source projects sourcing attendant services from internal IT groups, this looks like a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s, where internal IT groups handled all the system integration requirements for their software deployments.

IDC believes that if open source software is to continue its penetration into mainstream and enterprise environments, the ecosystem must evolve to include many service providers that are knowledgeable about open source software and can handle the integration, implementation, and training needs of end users in particular. (28)

Why is this a bad thing? Enterprises are unshackling themselves from proprietary, expensive licenses and reinvesting that money in the gift that keeps on giving: people. That's how I read the data.

This becomes especially pronounced when one considers two other questions IDC asked. The first is, "Compared to all of your other current IT initiatives (whether Open Source software or not), please indicate the importance to your organization of your top 10 Open Source software projects." The answer? Across the board (Applications, Infrastructure, and Application Deployment and Development) these open-source projects were rated "Critical" or "High Importance" by 73 percent of respondents.

In other words, these projects weren't simply casual afterthoughts that didn't require outside help. They were perhaps some of the most important IT projects the enterprise was deploying. Those may be best kept in-house.

The second question - "Does your organization plan to increase, keep the same, or decrease its activities in the next year for each of your top 10 Open Source software projects?" - is also revealing. 90 percent of respondents are planning to increase or keep the same (very healthy) level of investment in open source.

Clearly, if the projects weren't working out, we'd see this number come in much lower. But apparently this open-source liberation from vendors (Many opted to support themselves rather than purchase commercial support, according to IDC's research) turns out to be a Very Good Thing.

Would the industry be better off with more and better-qualified consultants? Absolutely. Actually, a better way to ask this might be, would the industry be better off with more consulting companies actually owning up to how much open source they're already implementing? The answer to this is a resounding "Yes!" Accenture, SAIC, Cap Gemini, etc. are all using a tremendous amount of open-source software, but generally aren't working with the project leads/maintainers to do so (and I suspect aren't telling their clients about it, either). I know of one that has done well over 100 projects with an open-source infrastructure project, yet has failed to work with the (commercial) project source at all.

Then again, maybe this is a source of strength in open source, too. There's plenty of money in open source for commercial vendors, but there's also plenty of opportunity for customers to build and support their own open source derived projects. And why not? Since when must enterprises lock themselves into vendors forever?

That's the 20th Century. We're in the 21st Century now. The Customer Century.

Also see:

• The proprietary problem with innovation and scale;
• Business model innovation: "You have to burn the boats";
• Gartner underhypes open source.

[russ danner]

Almost everyone I've spoken to in the last year implementing critical projects based on open source software has opted to go with commercial products that have the support system behind it. At JBoss world this weekend I heard this over and over -- customers were choosing JBoss because it had the Redhat ecosystem behind it.

The fact that IT can do its own integration is a huge strength in the open source approach. It's almost impossible to go it alone with closed source. I believe the customer should have the choice. When it comes to actually doing your own integration? Well, that's a business question -- not a technology question. If companies are creating opportunity for themselves or slashing costs by doing their own support and integration, I think that's fantastic. However, from where I stand, I'd rather have my developers focused on value add components. I want them creating opportunity for my business -- not installing, integrating, and maintaining infrastructure. We're not a huge IT shop. We have a handful of bright stars we want for focus like a laser on domain specific needs.

It's an interesting time for service integrators in open source -- there is still quite a bit of room for more players. I keep close tabs on several of the SI(s) here in the US. Several that I watch are averaging contracts of half a million and up, and don't have time to take all the leads that come their way. There is enough demand that Open Source SIs can choose their customers. It haven't met a single open source SI who is starving for business.

One last thought -- open source not only allows IT shops to bring the whole game back in house if they want to but it also allows them to partner with other IT shops. My business is not technology -- its publishing and supporting the needs of an organization with a global membership. We don't compete with technology per se. When it comes to technology, or at least 90% of the technology, I believe the winning strategy is partnership with similar companies, vendors, SIs, communities and so on. Open source is the only game in town that supports this strategy.

[dvfreelancer]

This is part of the reason I left a big consulting company to strike out on my own. It may not always be practical to run a vendor free enterprise but it's certainly possible to stay out of the trap of a dysfunctional vendor-lead relationship by utilizing open source.

You should be seeking out vendors that offer the value services you need, not entertaining presentations by consulting companies and software reps trying to sell you something. That's the tail wagging the dog but all too familiar in many organizations.

I've worked for at least one of the companies mentioned in the article and I can tell you that's absolutely true. Many times those companies are using open source back-end systems but are not promoting those solutions to customers. Because the margin is bigger working with proprietary vendors. I got tired of it. All the fun stuff in IT is happening in open source. And I believe open source presents a value proposition to many companies that's being overlooked.

[r_h_p]

I own and manage a niche SI/consultancy that advocates the use of open sources and have been doing so for the past three years.

The likelihood of getting clients depends on their size. SME's are likely to outsource and are happy wit the cheapest option. OSS goes far in this arena.

Our client base is corporate (carrier grade telco solutions & financial services) and OSS is often frowned on by anyone other that the CFO. It takes a really mature CIO who understands the value presented by long term partnerships to deliver value, to wade into OSS waters.

To make the journey more pleasant from a risk point of view, the solutions are delivered on OSS with commercial backing and SLA's for 3rd level support. The BIG SI's have taken a similar approach, but they are truly feeding off solutions in this space without contributing their changes back into the public domain. This is a shame.

But in principal true OSS is social in nature which will always have some serious clashes with capital initiatives.

A true arena that OSS can flourish in would be the public sector. It is the environment where OSS initiatives can get the support and earn credits that can put them up against proprietary solutions. But smart software sales people seem to be getting the best out of most civil servants.

Based on the quality and innovativeness of OSS, I would hope that governments (some have) understand the savings on spend in terms of IT can be made by going OSS and commodity hardware. These are borne two fold: licenses and vendor lock in.

This be told: Its very possible to build a successful business using OSS. We have done so. The client benefits at the end of the day, and they continue doing business with us. We return the favour by passing on the knowledge and committing the changes back in the public domain.

[amadensor]

Notice that it does not say consulting is not available, just that it is not being used. Perhaps this is at least partly because open source solutions tend to be easier to deploy, not having a vested interest in keeping their VAR's in business.