Open Source Computing

Long before computers, iPad, smartphone, and countless other electronic devices out of our homes, most computers are sold for a specific purpose. A bank? Then you need special mainframe. Own insurance company? Then you need this machine. Early Pioneers such as IBM realized that in order to sell hardware, you have to create the software. Thus created the program of banking, insurance and other important sell hardware - software is free, but the mainframe to put it on -! Well, that cause you /> Today, most businesses do not have to worry about what to buy their hardware vendors because everything pretty universal. Instead, they have to worry about the type of software used to run the business in such goods. There are many options, from pre-packaged off-the-shelf solutions, in-house designed and built solutions, customized contract design, etc.. Then there is an open source - a relative newcomer to most businesses, but especially one that is growing in acceptance in companies around the world. /> So, what exactly is open source? In general, it is the software that provides an open license - you can get the source code and then you are free to do with it what you want. You can run it as-is, or customize ga ga used as part of another package. Companies are heated for open source computing in recent years because it allows them to grow faster in the selection and software solutions that meet their business needs. It is not locked into a particular vendor, or excluded from the program as a whole, because the price tag is too high. It allows them to put much of their in-house software and IT talent to work designing specific software that contains business rules for the company rather than re-designing the joint programs - such as accounting packages, web server, etc.. Of course, as the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Free has its drawbacks - one of the biggest drawbacks to any business that wants to go open source route, the question of support for the system is running. Imagine working with the open source accounting package and failed - not support the amount of time and potential loss of revenue could suffer work great. It is for this reason that many companies, when looking at the open source route, not free the price in mind, but rather, they think of value-added support services offered by third party companies. /> While the software may be free, many companies pay for support contracts to ensure that when things go wrong someone on the other end of the phone to help them. As the vendor to be in this model, taking open source software such as Linux OS, and package them with support services and offers to the customers. In fact, the trend is to connect the open source software with support services and enforcement has become so popular, many commercial vendors that may have provided us with products such as HP Server </>, Sun servers and software, we started looking at offering similar programs or revamping its product line to take advantage of open source development. /> It is open source right for your company? It all depends on what you are trying to achieve. No one is ever perfect fit for every company and every business has to decide what it wants to spend its limited resources. However, for most companies, the road to open source computing looking bright and expanding every day. Proprietary, closed software package can be a day of something that can only talk about IT books in history. About the Author: Steve Oono is the VP of Sales for Mojo Systems. They are the leading industry provider of Sun servers </>, HP Server </>, IBM, Oracle, and Fujitsu hardware and servers. For more information, please visit <