Comments on: Gartner's 'augmented reality' on IT spending

The analyst firm seems to have a love-hate relationship with open source, completely forgetting to suggest its use to cash-starved CIOs.

[sniperdoc]

Well... I can completely understand why Gartner didn't refer to Open Source. I guess the easiest way for me to put it, would be to use an analogy.

I'm NOT an ueber-geek. I don't search the Internets (yes i meant to write it that way for effect), for open source utilities or applications. I don't spend my afternoon sifting through the thousands of open source things that are on the internets. Quite frankly... I... don't... have... the... time! I don't spend my off time doing those things. I buy a book, Office Sharepoint Server 2007 by Microsoft Press, for example and whatever I need to know... I'll read, implement, and learn.

I can go buy a book, because I know what I'm looking for. For example, it was through CHANCE that I spoke with an ueber-geek, that told me that instead of using Server 2003's Active Directory, I could just use Samba. But that'd require learning an entirely different OS along with some inter-operability issues that COULD crop up at any moment. If I just bought the Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure book, and skimmed through it, I'd get a quicker understanding than looking at a Samba informational site, since most of the things that are windows based, mesh together seamlessly and can be understood in a synergystic environment.

Plus, given that its Open Source, means security loopholes. How comfortable am I running an Open Source mail server app? Heck no! Since it is open source it's pretty much able to be picked apart at whim... so why would I have that on my network? I'd rather get software/applications that I pay for, that ensure me some type of support system with a response time of same day, if not same hour support. With open source I'll be trolling through message boards and emails all day if not several days. No thanks.

Open Source is viable for ueber-geeks who can manage everything themselves. But, after a certain point of time you'll find that networks just get too big and you'll have to find people that either have the same knowledge as yourself or make the switch to something that is easier to manage.

I don't knock Open Source in driving the community to develop better and more resilient software, because it is true. But it certainly is not easier to manage and support, and therefore for the big enterprises out on the internets, it's probably not a safe and easy to manage solution.

I'm just a IT Director in a Microsoft world... if it was all Linux or open source, I'd learn that instead... but it isn't. And I'm sure the rest of the regular-geek IT Directors, CIO's and whoever else feel the same.

[odubtaig]

Clueless. The winning comment has to be [b]"Plus, given that its Open Source, means security loopholes."[/b]

Awesome. A complete misunderstanding of what makes good security and a terrible misuse of the word 'loophole' combined. Also, see several posts back on why the NSA believe the exact opposite.

Now, no-one cares that you're not an Über-Aussenseiter because the companies that make money with F/OSS are selling to companies who have teams of Über-Aussenseiter to deal with it for them.

[b]"I'm just a IT Director in a Microsoft world"[/b]

Really? Good grief, they'll promote anyone these days. Reminds me of the IBM minicomputer programmer who lost her job because she never learned any other skills, like modern programming languages (and by modern I mean C) and the system became obsolete. I would say I don't believe that claim but with the incompetence I witness on a regular basis it's all too easy to believe.

[odubtaig]

Hi Matt, I'm not sure if you know exactly what Augmented Reality is but it does have potential serious applications, the US military have been interested in it for some time for the potential to give the kind of HUDs you only see in computer games. That said, practical application is some time off, probably about the time the computing power doesn't have to come on a camping backpack sized frame strapped to the back and has a battery life of more than a couple of hours.

Still, mashups and semantics? Why not just invest in RAD or AGILE or some other dev technique?

[abailey1]

Where is Open Source? Open Source what from whom? Why is it that technology geeks love to talk about Open Source but in their dislike of anything branded or commercial they never mention a particular vendor's solution. DO you want Gartner to talk about Open Source from RedHat or IBM or perhaps Sun. Normally the best we get from you is Linux which still doesn't tell a potential customer from whom to buy an Open Source solution and what service he can expect. Perhaps when you can clearly articulate what Opens Source solution vendor has the best solution for business needs at a cost, both for implementation and maintenance that is cheaper than other non Open Source solutions people will pay more attention.