In times of economic crises, it is wiser to adopt open source software than to spend hundreds and thousands on buying proprietary business applications. Moreover, open source software leaves a lot of room for you to customise according to your needs.

Adopt Open Source Software To Beat Tight Budgets

>> Key BenefITs KnowhowFOSSisdifferentfromfreeware AdoptFOSStoscaleupyourITinfrastructure

withinalowerbudget,andenhanceproductivity

CheckoutinterestingcasestudieswhereFOSShelpedcutITspending

criteria. Yet often, successful

evaluation doesn’t get converted into

procurement due to limited funds.

Whether the economy

is booming or going bust,

uncontrolled IT expenses can burn a

hole in a company’s pocket. During

an economic downturn, IT budgets

are often slashed to cut costs.

According to a survey by Forrester

Research, more than 40 per cent

of large businesses had already

cut their IT budgets in 2008 due to

the global economic slowdown. In

Technology selection doesn’t

work the same way for an

individual evaluator as it

does for an organisation. Individual

evaluators burn the midnight oil

to find the best technology to solve

the problems that organisations

encounter. On the other hand,

technology selection from an

organisation’s standpoint involves a

comprehensive 360 degree selection

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such a scenario, it becomes hard

to meet different operational

challenges within limited

budgets, while keeping the

company abreast in technology.

But technology adoption would

look more attractive during

sluggish conditions if the desired

technology were available

at 10-20 per cent of the cost.

Discounts are always welcome in

this competitive world but FOSS

(Free and Open Source Software)

could be treated as an even

better option. FOSS is different

from freeware.

While the latter is proprietary

software that’s made available

free of cost, it’s usually not

available for study or source code

modification and subsequent

redistribution. But FOSS gives

you the liberty to study, modify

the source code and freely

redistribute the modified version,

which makes the software

available at very little or no cost.

According to the OSI (Open

Source Initiative):

“The basic idea behind open

source is very simple. When

programmers on the Internet can

read, redistribute and modify the

source for a piece of software,

it evolves. People improve it,

people adapt it, people fix bugs.

And this can happen at a speed

that, if one is used to the slow

pace of conventional software

development, seems astonishing.

We in the open source

community have learned that

this rapid evolutionary process

produces better software than

the traditional closed model,

in which only a very few

programmers can see the source

and everybody else must blindly

use an opaque block of bits.”

Open source gains popularity

Many companies across the

globe have already saved huge

amounts of money by adopting

open source software. Gartner, an

information technology advisory

firm, predicts that by 2012 more

than 90 per cent of enterprises

worldwide will deploy open source

software in one form or another.

Another study from Forrester

Research has shown that CIOs

regard its low cost as the main

driver for open source software.

Former president of India Dr.

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam supported

open source software a long time

back. In one of his speeches on a

visit to IIIT (International Institute

of Information Technology),

Pune, he said “Further spread of

IT, which is influencing the daily

life of individuals, would have a

devastating effect on the lives of

society due to any small shift in the

business practice involving these

proprietary solutions. It is precisely

for these reasons that open source

software needs to be built, which

would be cost-effective for the

entire society. In India, open

source code software will have to

come and stay in a big way for the

benefit of our billion people.”

Maintain efficiency and productivity at lower budgets

Adopting FOSS can help

an organisation in enhancing

productivity within a much

lower budget. The last economic

downturn in 2001 forced E*Trade

(an online stock trading company)

to reduce its IT spending by a third.

The company’s chief technology

officer adopted open source

technology and the decision

helped the company in saving $13

million a year. In January 2009,

a Silicon Valley-based company,

Marketcetera, announced the

release of an open source

automated trading platform for

traders, hedge fund managers and

brokers that offer new features that

include robust yet complex event

processing (CEP) capabilities and

enhanced strategy development

for faster testing and deployment

of algorithms. Such software

would surely be advantageous for

financial institutions looking for

technology driven business at a

much reduced cost.

The Electronics Corporation of

Tamil Nadu Limited (ELCOT) took

an initiative sometime back in 2007

to adopt Linux and saved around $5

million in the process. Desktops for

schools in villages that used to run

proprietary software earlier were

replaced with SUSELinux and other

open source applications. Along

with this, servers to host government

applications were also migrated to

open source software. Apart from

the savings on software licences,

the hardware investments with this

initiative was brought down by 25

per cent. Other central government

organisations like CDAC and NIC

also use open source software to

accomplish many projects. The

Malaysian government also adopted

Dr A P J Abdul Kalam

“In India, open source code software will have

to come and stay in a big way for the benefit of our billion people.”

24 / March 2009 / BenefIT

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open source software last year

and saved $12 million.

The InterContinental Hotels

Group has adopted Linux – the

JBoss application server and

Mysql/PostgreSQL open source

database servers, to reduce its

IT spending. To consolidate the

data of its 4000 hotels, the group

decided to adopt SugarCRM,

an open source customer

relationship management

application. Forrester database

analyst Noel Yuhanna said that

open source databases can

now meet about 80 per cent of

existing business application

needs. “Some customers

are running mission-critical

transactional deployments with

over 3 TB of data on open source

databases, while others are

running very large workloads that

support hundreds and thousands

of concurrent users,” he wrote.

Forrester Research also released

a report stating that companies

can save around 25 per cent of

their database costs by adopting

the open source database

system and can further reduce

another 25 per cent by deploying

the software on commodity

hardware.

Many more companies

around us are already saving

millions by utilising the power

of open source software to enjoy

more freedom in customisation,

security, reliability and efficiency.

The Central Bank, HPCL, Central

Railways, Air India, Rolta India,

Virgin Mobile, VSNL, Reliance

ADA, Bharti Telesoft, Luftansa,

Omax, Parsavnath, FM Travel,

Godfrey Philips, Jindal Steels, JK

Technosoft, etc, are just a few

names from a long list of open

source users.

Go for FOSSSo the next time you think of

putting up a hefty amount to buy

commercial licenses, you must

prefix the term “open source” to

the solution you require before

doing a quick Google search.

Keywords like “open source

operating system”, “open source

database server”, “open source

network monitoring system”,

“open source chat server”, “open

source mail server”, “open source

PBX”, “open source IDS”, “open

source Photoshop”, etc, can help

you find open source alternatives

to fit your technical and business

requirements.

Before adopting FOSS,

organisations need to be aware of

licensing, support, distribution,

acquisition and other aspects of

FOSS governance. FOSSBazaar.

org serves this purpose and

provides plenty of information

on the subject. Finding the right

skill-set to deploy and support

open source software is no longer

a nightmare; you can either

directly approach the open source

software company, its channel

partners, or find an open source

consulting company in your area

to help you with the deployment

and the on-going maintenance of

the software.

Dhruv Soi The author is the founder and principal consult-

ant, Torrid Networks, and chair, OWASP India. He can be reached at: dhruv.soi@torridnet.com

FOSS gives you the liberty to study or

modify the source code and freely redistribute the modified version,

which makes the software available at very little or no cost.

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ManageIT