The US DOD just published a memo on how to deal with Open Source software. And they make a good point that Open Source software should looked at the same ways as any other software. But is this really possible? Do governmental and commercial organizations really create the ground for a fair comparison?

Most organizations look for software by submitting RFIs and RFPs. While commercial proprietary software companies (and to some extent commercial open source players) can hope for the license and subscription money to cover the costs for filling out RFIs/RPFs a true Open Source community doesn’t have this possibility. And Open Source projects like Lucene, Plone, Drupal or Ruby don’t have sales people and marketing to deal with RFIs/RPFs or to make sure they actually receive them. In some cases services players (i.e. Acquia, Lucid, Wyona, etc.) may jump in and fight for the business, but in many cases there’s nobody. That’s why many purchasing officers think there’s for example no alternative to Microsoft Office.

So here’s what I think needs to be done. If an organization really wants to find the best option then they hire a consulting/integration company with the right skill set to substitute the commercial organization between the buyer and the software as such. The results of their work can be compared with the answers of the commercial software providers. What is important though is to look at all the costs involved with a software acquisition. Also the costs that usually are not looked at, like support/maintenance costs, replacement cost, etc.

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Actuate published its 2009 Open Source Survey. What is interesting is the adoption rate in specific countries. Here’s what Actuate’s press release summarizes:

• China reveals high adoption rates with a large majority of those surveyed (80.3%) using open source software. In all regions surveyed the main perceived benefit of open source software is no license costs. However access to source code was uniquely given a 72.6% rating by Chinese respondents.
• In North America two-fifths of respondents are already using open source (41.0%) with close to one-tenth of respondents either in the process of adopting or planning to adopt.  The proportion of respondents who feel that the benefits of open source software outweigh the inhibitors (56.8%) is nearly seven times higher than the proportion that disagree (8.4%). These results are even more positive than in the previous survey.
• Europe continues to capitalise on its early recognition of open source software’s potential, in particular France where over two thirds (67.0%) of the respondents already use open source software and Germany where the proportion using open source software has increased this year to 60.6%.  This contrasts with the UK at 42.1% adoption

What should this be telling us?

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 Many enterprises have two main application technologies settled in their IT landscape. Everything what has to do with office, client infrastructure and local productivity is typically Microsoft. Everything that has to do with enterprise resource planning (ERP) is supported by SAP (or maybe Oracle). Both technology vendors (Microsoft and SAP) are strong market players and leaders in their markets. But both players also try to enlarge their footprint, be it by adding applications or infrastructure elements. There’s no total overlap of the capabilities yet, but Microsoft has been adding more and more ERP/CRM/Workflow/… type functionality over time and SAP has been extending its portal stack. Many companies are concerned by this duopoly type of situation in their IT and are looking for additional vendors and technology platforms. Open Source can be an excellent choice here. Open Source is typically integration friendly, so connects well to SAP and Microsoft products. With Open Source you can better decide what pieces you want to use and what not, so the overlap with already existing applications can be minimized. And with Open Source you only pay what you use, if you pay at all. More and more companies are recognizing these advantages and have started to implement Open Source technologies and products and to build the needed skill base to cope with it. And, it’s not totally unthinkable to actually reduce the footprint Microsoft and SAP are having in the enterprise, by moving functionality into the Open Source stack.

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 Many people have wondered whether running a company using Open Source software is possible. The answer is “yes we can”. Does it make sense though? Well, it depends.

There are good alternatives for almost every important commercial software available today. Are they able to beat the commercial proprietary software? Maybe yes, maybe no. Are they good enough? Most of the time, yes. But of course it depends on the actual requirements.

Let’s take an example that is often discussed. Can you replace SAP with Open Source software? For some companies this is possible. If only finance and HR is used from SAP there may be a good alternative in Open Source. If the company is small in comparison one of the Open Source solutions may do the job. But there’s no Open Source package that can compete with the depth of functionality offered by the whole SAP product range. Many companies don’t need this depth though, even if they don’t know. They might have a more cost efficient solution by taking different technologies for finance, HR and operation/planning type topics. It may even mean to develop some of the software and doing some of the integration needed. What can a company win, when going the ERP assembly route? Freedom, self-management, independence, control, efficiency, etc. It’s worthwhile to think about this before following the competition and just picking SAP because it’s the “standard”.

So, while it takes guts and good long term thinking to make a choice against industry leading packages like SAP, other areas are much easier to pick an Open Source alternative. It’s a nobrainer to select an Open Source CMS technology or to develop using Eclipse. So, the recommendation is, to look at the alternatives before making rapid decisions against Open Source.

And, to come back to the initial question. Yes, the Open Source software only supported/enabled company is possible, but few exist and commercial proprietary can make sense when it does what is needed.

For further ideas look at the table below.

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