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The world of open source software has become a significant new development for businesses who want to use the latest technology without breaking their budget. With the rapid technological advancements, small businesses are struggling to keep pace. Interestingly many are unaware of technologies such as Open-source tools, applications, and platforms that could serve as a cheaper alternative to proprietary software.
Open-Source is, first and foremost, a decentralized software development model that allows companies to open their software to the public for free use to drive open collaboration and development to enhance the product further. In other words, the source code of a given cloud application is available to others beyond just its original creators, which leads to open collaboration and a better end product. Small businesses can leverage open-source software products to reduce the cost of a user license or avoid the fee altogether. Those with an “entrepreneurial mindset” can leverage the opportunity to distribute at no charge.
In mid-February, a company called Red Hat — which makes software available in the open source market — released its State of Enterprise Open Source. It showed that 77 percent of survey respondents, all in the IT industry, expected their businesses to use open source sometime this year.
There are numerous advantages to using open source to solve business problems. Highly dependent on how a given audience elects to leverage it, such as developers, start-ups, small business owners, and managed service providers. According to an article on the news website Tech Republic, it’s especially great for collaborative projects, as it creates more efficiency while still being available and accessible in the cloud. It’s also considerably less expensive than purchasing and using proprietary software. Interestingly, the article states that many proprietary software services are based on an open-source foundation. As a tech start-up, open source software is highly beneficial to bringing tech ideas to life without breaking the bank. Small business owners can leverage it to acquire the software needed to run business operations without the high price tag of proprietary software.
The other advantages cited in the report are higher quality software and better security. As for types of usage, the four main ones mentioned are security systems, cloud, database, and big data and analytics.
Now, the report isn’t all roses. Some respondents, ranging up to 38 percent, were concerned about the lack of internal skills to manage and support, the level of support available, security of open source code, and compatibility with their internal systems.
Still, Tech Republic reports that cloud-native applications are outpacing legacy-based ones at a pace of 61 percent vs. 39 percent. Even so, there’s not necessarily a need to replace the legacy systems you have that are working, popular though open source apps may be.
“Companies are doing different things for different parts of their infrastructure,” said Gordon Haff, a tech evangelist for Red Hat. “If there’s an app that’s running fine today and there’s no particular reason to update it, then there’s no reason to go too much work to change just for the sake of change.” And we agree with that notion.
If budget is a concern: Businesses seeking more cost-effective measures to leverage new technologies to enhance their business operations should consider some open source software.
Adopting open-source enterprise software can be a great way to help your organization enhance business capabilities and digitally transform simultaneously. We’re here for you if any changes are needed, from implementing new technology or making modifications that will transform how work gets done.