Open source has been a big winner in the recession, given its ability to drive down costs. For those that think the proprietary world can easily follow suit, however, simply by giving away "express" versions of their software, or through developer programs, Optaros consultant Jeff Potts has some advice: "Try again."
Jeff Potts
It's absolutely true that most open-source code gets used and not modified. Few bother to to view the source code.
But for a system integrator like Potts' employer, Optaros, code is critical. Potts is particularly well-suited to call this out, given that prior to Optaros he was a vice president at Hitachi Consulting where he did Documentum and other proprietary software deployments.
While Potts, in his response to a Documentum developer post, lists several reasons that open source is superior to proprietary software for developers, it's ultimately source code availability that underlies them all:
Developers working with closed source ECM vendors can't see the code. It's obvious, I know. For developers that work with open source it is extremely natural to use the CMS [Content Management System] source code when debugging or for reference. You don't even think about it-it's just there and you use it. Imagine the frustration of someone who works with closed source CMS who has to routinely decompile classes to figure out what's going on. That truly sucks. What good is a "Developer Edition" that doesn't come with source code?
Not much. For system integrators, in particular, source code is essential. Proprietary vendors that treat their products like a "black box" that can only be accessed through a magical API are doing their partners, and hence themselves, a disservice.
Disclosure: Optaros is an Alfresco partner, and also works with a range of open-source CMSes, including competitors to Alfresco.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Nestle's Nespresso division, a Switzerland-based global leader in coffee, with more than 1,700 employees and sales into 50 countries, had the kind of problem most companies would love to have: growth. As its traditional retail channels moved online, it found it difficult to scale its systems to be able to manage its online growth.
Enter MuleSource, with its open-source Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) technology, Mule. In conjunction with a leading open-source system integrator, Optaros, the two put together a highly scalable services-oriented architecture for Nespresso that makes the coffee drip on time:
Nespresso engaged Optaros and MuleSource to help its corporate architecture team define and implement a new middleware architecture called Nespresso Open Architecture, or NesOA. This new modern architecture is based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles, including fully decoupled systems that support both synchronous and asynchronous integration.
With these capabilities, Nespresso's IT infrastructure can now enable new distribution channels, improve business agility, cope with increased transaction volumes, and more easily introduce new applications and services, as needed.
Sounds great, but it's especially telling that the initial implementation took only six months, a testament to the lightweight, open approach that open-source projects like Mule offer enterprises.
But open source isn't just a short-term time saver. In fact, its biggest benefits may come from increased flexibility down the road, as Nespresso's Joel Schmitt, an enterprise architect, declares in a case study describing Nespresso's deployment:
We are committed to an open-source approach, including MuleSource's Mule ESB, because complying with open standards is key for future extensibility and growth...With our new architecture, we have been able to add flexibility and agility to our system landscape.
In this case, Optaros and MuleSource delivered cost and flexibility benefits, but the same types of benefits are being discovered for a wide variety of applications by enterprise IT.
Disclosure: I am an adviser to MuleSource, and my employer, Alfresco, partners with Optaros. I do not, however, drink coffee, so theoretically, I'm biased against Nespresso. :-)
For some reason I didn't catch this the first time I read Optaros' research report ("The Growth of Open Source Software in Organizations"), but I read it on Amit Deshpande's (of SAP's Open Source Research Lab) blog today and was particularly impressed by one finding from the report:
Organizations are saving millions of dollars on IT by using open source software. In 2004, open source software saved large companies (with annual revenue of over $1 billion) an average of $3.3 million. ... Read more
Optaros has just launched the Enterprise Open Source Directory, and it's exceptional. In some ways, it's competitive with Red Hat Exchange (RHX), but only superficially. Both provide an easy way to find and evaluate (on paper) the leading enterprise-class open source projects. RHX, however, takes it a step further and offers easy installation and post-sale support.
But Optaros' EOSD goes farther than RHX in providing a hefty inventory of open source projects to evaluate, with both its ratings and user ratings. So, if you look up Enterprise Content Management, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Operating Systems, etc., you get Optaros' studied judgment as well as the EOSD community's judgment. The ratings and information are somewhat sparse now, but will grow and improve as the site gets used.
Here's a look:
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