Cost-Conscious Companies Turn To Open Source 249
Martyr4BK writes "BusinessWeek has a slew of special reports today on open source software discussing the benefits for buyers who are cost conscious and open source being the silver lining for the economic slump. They even have a slideshow of 'OSS alternatives' like Linux, Apache, MySQL, Firefox, Xen, Pentaho, OpenOffice.org, Drupal, Alfresco, SugarCRM, and Asterisk. These are all good examples (we use a bunch of them already); what other open source software can I use to drop my company's IT costs, and maybe get a decent bonus for the year?"
I wonder (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides Slashdot how much FOSS does Slashdot use?
Do they use Asterisk for it's phone system? Or does it's parent company do all the "business" stuff for them and just let write perl and post articles?
TCO not always lower (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Would love to... (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition, the open source IT staff seem to just want to constantly be changing everything when something newer and flashier comes out (read that as closer to functionality to a purchased project). In one year we have had 3 different email servers, with the associated problems of swapping over. Or the IT recommended web casting software works on MAC and windows but doesn't have full functionality on the Linux boxes. I was hoping that would change when we change the IT staff lead, but the new guys seem the same.
I also find it amusing that the anti-MS IT staff bitch about things like MS Outlook, but then celebrate when Thunderbird adds a function bringing it closer to MS Outlook.
Over half the company just use their own personal laptops due to the hassle, which ironically, defeats the crippling obsession with security that the IT guys have.
Works for me (Score:5, Interesting)
pitiful (Score:3, Interesting)
Planner wasted a day of my life last week. I put an entire project into it, and then found out it couldn't do leveling. It also couldn't export in MS Project or any other common format, so I had to start again in another project management tool. Eventually I just went with a table in a wordprocessor, and a collaboration webapp.
software appliances can further reduce costs (Score:2, Interesting)
Despite being free on one level, if you look at opensource from a business perspective you realize they are looking at the costs slightly differently.
If they are looking at all that is. To be considered by a business, the opensource alternative has to be noticed first, and that isn't trivial considering the vast majority of opensource projects don't exactly have a marketing budget.
One way to lower the barrier to entry is to make an opensource solution really easy to try out, but sometimes even that isn't enough. Often an opensource alternative is noticed, but its not a perfect fit for what the business (thinks it) needs. The free part is less impressive when you have to consider customization costs, integration costs, long-term maintenance costs, etc. Most businesses don't want to have to notice their software, they just want something that works.
Now for the plug. I'm one of the developers for TurnKey Linux [turnkeylinux.org], an opensource project that aims to develop high-quality software appliances [wikipedia.org] that are easy to use, easy to deploy, and free. The project's motto is "everything that can be easy, should be easy!"
We've been building a family of installable live CDs that are based on Ubuntu (Debian too soon!) and are each pre-integrated to serve specific usage scenarios (e.g., CMS, database, Wiki, web development frameworks).
We only launched a few months ago, and we're still officially in beta, but thanks to the feedback from the community we've already made pretty good progress (up to 9 appliances now - we're covering the low hanging fruit first)
Technical highlights:
We're hoping this kind of last-mile integration effort will make opensource alternatives an easier "sell" and promote adoption.
Check us out!
http://www.turnkeylinux.org/ [turnkeylinux.org]
Re:Would love to... (Score:3, Interesting)
That you would buy over and over again with each new upgrade. Software is not a fixed cost, it is always a recurring cost no matter how you look at it. An additional, often overlooked, cost of proprietary software is having to mold your workflow to match their model (using F/OSS and some dev time you can guide the project in the direction you need). You can start a project with a well organized website stating project goals, and let people build from there. State that developers are needed, offer rewards for certain features. I might suggest seeding the project with a small useful core (pay a dev for that). And just try to grow it from there. Make it a pet project.
Sorry, nice try (Score:3, Interesting)
At this very moment in time there is nothing I can pull in from the Net which I can run for a while as Exchange replacement without a large amount of work on the client side - MS has built the barriers quite well.
As long as there isn't a USABLE Exchange replacement we won't be able to lose it in the server room - management is addicted to Outlook (even though the 2007 version suffers the same productivity obliterating GUI) and its ability to share calendars. And AFAIK there is NO plug-n-play replacement out there.
Next up: Outlook. Without an API compliant replacement that integrated what Outlook put together you've got no hope. Mobile phones sync to it (including the Jesus phone), calendaring is integrated and there is over the air sync available as well. And it sucks VERY badly on networking (which you find when you make the mistake to use it on EDGE or 3G) - but it works for management. End of story.
I would LOVE to nuke the Exchange setup and move that last bastion to Ubuntu as well, but no chance..
Re:Couldn't find the slideshow mentioned... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obligatory question (Score:3, Interesting)
I know the intent (and moderation) was "funny" but this is actually how a former employer operated. Once he realized that all he had to do was not get caught for a certain period of time and it suddenly became worth it to not renew licenses, he stopped renewing licenses. He did get audited. It cost him an order of magnitude less than it would've to have kept current on his licenses for the five years he managed to skate by.
Your plan makes sense in some cases. :)
Re:Couldn't find the slideshow mentioned... (Score:1, Interesting)
> I'm not so sure its useful as a generic project-tracking system, in the way MS Project and similar software is intended.
Of course it isn't, because traditional project tracking systems are not useful.
I have tried both, and with track and ability to pick our own tools and select the tasks we want to do we finished 2 months early and we spent about 20% less hours than what was planned. Yet I enjoyed the project and considered the speed very relaxed.
With traditional project tracking, my tasks changed every week, because work done by others was taking more time and I needed the parts they were supposed to implement. We have to use tools picked by the company (which are more expensive for a single person than my salary is) and a lot of time is spend learning the tools and still after the learning it takes more time to use them that the project team would have wanted to use.
We have already missed several deadlines and we have nearly nothing done yet. We have talked about the problems, but decisions can't be changed.
It is like a horror movie for developers.
$250,000 in an Small buisness (Score:2, Interesting)
I save easy $250,000 US a year being an all open source shop, and would likely not even be in buisness without open source software in a small company of less than 10 employees that is not primarily IT related but uses a lot of software to reduce cost.
For those that complain that they did better under Microsoft, chances are has no idea what their IT staff was doing when they ran MS.