Adopt mixed source strategy to address customer needs

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: Linux and open source have transformed the computing landscape by making innovation a collective effort. Open source software eliminates traditional high licensing fees, limited options and vendor lock-in that too often accompany proprietary software.

As the commercial interest by end users and providers increases in open source, it’s difficult to resist the temptation of debate on open-source versus proprietary.

However, the discourse should no longer be confined to ‘open source vs. proprietary software’. It should be centered on the merits of open source, and how they compete or complement commercial/ proprietary solutions. It should be about taking things and crafting them in ways that help deliver increased value and solve customers’ business problems.

No customer is making a decision based on whether something is pure open source or not. They’re making decisions based on whether it solves the business problem. One of the approach to effectively address customers needs is to adopt best of both the worlds i.e open source and proprietary, or adopt what can be called as mixed source strategy.

The criterion for deciding what should be embraced from OSS movement, and what should be an inhouse developmental efforts, should be an ongoing exercise and be based on an assessment of how best to meet customers’ needs.

Mixed source is part of our day-to-day life. There are two dimensions to being mixed source.

In a single platform you may have both open and closed technologies like Novell open enterprise server (provides a choice of Linux kernel or NetWare kernel). That’s the vertical dimension. Then there is also the horizontal dimension.

Organisations have multi-vendor technologies in their environment—they have Windows, Unix, and mainframe. We used to call mixed source heterogeneous. But heterogeneous has expanded to become mixed source—some proprietary, some open.

These solutions combine all the advantages of Linux and open source with commercial solutions and a mature, global ecosystem of services, this results in new levels of freedom, security and flexibility and ultimately a higher return on investment for our customers.

It’s important for organisations to focus on adding business value and solve customer challenges. Organisations, which can help their customers put together and leverage mixed source stacks, will succeed in today’s environment.