Open Source Benefits

The Open Source Software (OSS) vs. Proprietary Software (PS) competitive landscape is constantly changing. Open Source has developed into one of the transformational IT trends. The market has significantly expanded with a growing user base and revolutionized development methodologies, business models, etc. across the globe.

 

Definition:

 

The most basic definition of Open Source Software (OSS) is a software program for which the source code is available. The advent of OSS has not only resulted in lower total cost of software ownership (TCO) for adopters, but has also created major changes in the economic interaction among players in the software ecosystem.

 

Leading IT research and Advisory companies state that:

 

• By 2016, Open Source Software (OSS) will be included in mission-critical software portfolios within 99% of Global 2000 enterprises, up from 75% in 2010
• By 2015, OSS will be used and adopted to help enable over 60% of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) services
• By 2014, organizations with effective, Open Source community participation will deliver high returns from their open-source investments
• By 2016, 50% of leading non-IT organizations will use OSS as a business strategy to gain competitive advantage

 

Open Source solutions have been successfully adopted by leading organizations globally as a cost-effective, flexible alternative to proprietary applications that impose exorbitant licensing fees, extraneous features, high support costs, and vendor incompatibility. The first wave of wide-spread adoption of Linux, MySQL, and JBoss convinced organizations on the viability of Open Source software as alternatives to expensive proprietary technologies, while meeting enterprise-class IT needs of security, stability, scalability and a robust, support model.

 

Open Source Software has progressed very rapidly in terms of feature richness, scalability, security and quality. Mainstream adopters of IT solutions across all industries are rapidly gaining confidence in the use of OSS, resulting in widespread adoption.