In today’s business climate all organizations are looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage. Often, technology can help with this endeavor by creating efficiencies within an organization. The biggest hurdle is determining the best solutions in which to invest time and resources. Most small to medium sized businesses rely on a technology partner to help make these decisions, but often that partner has specific vendors they work with which makes their opinions biased when it comes to providing solutions for your business. At Layered systems we have built our business around remaining vendor neutral which allows us to give you an unbiased opinion on what is best for your business when it comes to technology purchases. We implement solutions from proprietary vendors programas as well as solutions from the open source community, but often we find that organizations have the wrong idea about what open source really means. With the following information we hope to dispel the myths you may have heard and help you gain a better understanding of open source and its contribution to the technology world.
Myth #1: Open Source = Security Risk
Proprietary software vendors claim that open source is inherently insecure. This premise is based on the fact that since the source code is freely available, it must be easier to develop exploits; however, years of research indicate otherwise. In fact, open source software is typically seen as more secure than proprietary counterparts. This is largely due to the development structure of open source and its distributed nature. As open source solutions evolve they are seen by thousands of highly qualified and motivated developers who typically track down and fix program glitches before they become security flaws. When you boil it down to the simplest form, it is just a game of numbers – typically, there are more developers on large open source projects than there are employees of proprietary boxed solutions. events Head-to-head who do you think will win the security battle?
Myth #2: Open Source = Inferior Quality
A common misconception is that open source is of inferior quality to that of closed source counterparts. The typical argument is that since the open source developers are not being paid directly for their contributions, they are not motivated to create high quality solutions. It may be true that many open wholesale mlb jerseys source projects take a while to start gaining traction, but it is also true that once they gain traction it’s off to the races. Furthermore, most open source developers have a personal stake in the success of the project they are working on which tends to be even more powerful than a monetary stake. Now don’t get us wrong, there are poor applications in the open source world, but is that really any different in the closed source world? The wholesale jerseys truth is, not all applications are high quality no matter where they originate.
Myth #3: Open Source = No Support
This is one of the most common myths when people try to argue against open source solutions and we agree, at the surface it appears to be a major roadblock. After all, if there is no direct vendor to call, how can the end-user get support? The truth is there are many different resources available to open source projects including user forums, documentation, FAQs, and knowledge bases all wholesale jerseys with a large number of followers being the developers themselves. You won’t find this kind of support from a proprietary vendor since the developers are often not connected with the technical support at all. Secondly, for a proprietary product to remain supported, the company must stay in business. Within the open source community, individual developers can come and go, but the success of the project does not rely on a single individual so it is much less likely for the project to just “go away.”
Myth #4: Open Source = Unreliable & Unstable
Myth #4 is one of those myths that often gets mentioned, but we have yet to hear anyone actually defend it. A simple look at the numbers makes it quite evident that this is false. Linux and its variants are the #1 operating system in large enterprise. Apache is the #1 web server in use on the Internet. Bind is the #1 DNS server in use on the Internet. Firefox has surpassed Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the #1 web browser in use. All of these technology functions are mission-critical so how can one defend that open source is unreliable or unstable? Furthermore, this does not even take into consideration the thousands of other open source applications being used for mission-critical business functions every day such as OpenOffice, SugarCRM, and Zimba (email server) – and the list goes on. A Gartner survey from 2008 estimated that over 85% of organizations were using open source software, and the remaining 15% had plans to in the next 12 months. We think you get the point!
Myth #5: Open Source = Unrealistic Savings
Often it is said that the cost to migrate from a proprietary solution to open source makes the savings unrealistic, but let’s take a step back since this really depends on New the situation. There are many factors that, over time, will come into play. How long are you going to stay with the solution? How fast do you plan to grow? How flexible do you want to wholesale mlb jerseys be when it comes to customizing the application? Typically, open source solutions will be more cost-effective to maintain, more cost-effective for licensing as you expand, and more cost-effective when it comes to customizing the application since the code is open source. So, yes, we agree that the installation and conversion can be costly, but one has to compare the costs over a specific time frame to determine if the overhaul will bring the ROI expected. This is really something that has to be examined on an individual basis.
Myth #6: Open Source = Price Advantage
Commonly businesses want to get into open source primarily because they have Design the perception that it has a price advantage over proprietary solutions and often it does; however, price does not matter if the solution does not meet the business need. We find that moving to open source should not be about the price tag, but rather about the software being stable, efficient, reliable, effective, and flexible. These are common themes in the open source world and one of the main reasons it is taking such a foothold in The many organizations, regardless of the price tag. Organizations want to utilize all of their resources as efficiently as possible, including their human and capital resources, both of which is one cannot easily put a price tag on.
The Bottom Line
Far too often people claim that open source is scrambling to catch Microsoft, that large organizations do not use open source, or that open source is you not a viable option for mission-critical applications. At this point, we think it is quite clear that none of these claims are true. Open source software is running some of the largest enterprises in the world including Google, Yahoo, and Amazon. We think most people would have a hard time arguing that these companies are not running mission-critical applications. Open source is not the end-all solution to every business need, but it should definitely be a part of every organization’s technology portfolio. We would like to help you wade through the technological maze and help you to understand the different options you have to meet your desired goal – a business that runs like a finely-tuned machine. If you would like to contact us to discuss how we can help you take your business to the next level, fill out our contact form on the website or give us a call at 800.557.0663.
