Five reasons why your business should adopt open source software – Insider.co.uk

Open source software has changed the computing landscape forever. In just over 25 years, with little fanfare and even less promotion, its been installed on more devices than its proprietary cousins.

Its the backbone of the internet and runs enterprise mission critical services for most of the worlds largest organisations. Its generally seen as more secure, more agile, faster to drive value from, of higher quality andconsiderably less expensive to deploy, scale and maintain than its competitors the standard proprietary software companies.

Open source software is developed by some of the smartest and highest paid software engineers globally and used by the most ambitious and technologically advanced corporations in the world.

If you still dont believe open source is the future, here are five solid business reasons why your organisation should consider it.

Quality and security

All software has bugs, some functional (the software doesnt do what its supposed to) and some security-based (systems are hacked and information stolen). Security through secrecy has been the tradition of proprietary software, ensuring customers cant access the source code. For mission-critical applications like aircraft control systems, there may only be a few hundredpeople in the world who understand how the software is built and can spot flaws.

However, secrecy hasnt stopped corporate hijacking, zero day vulnerabilities, massive data thefts and blackmail by encryption. By making code visible to everyone, open source software like Linux, Android, WordPress andour own SuiteCRM, is viewed daily by hundreds of thousands of software engineers. Flaws are spotted and fixed quickly while improvements, extensions and additional features are rapidly added.

Cost

All software is an investment with associated costs for implementation, training and on-going support. License fees for proprietary software are a substantial upfront and on-going cost, with a host of additional restrictionsand associated fees. Price is often a barrier to scaling it further. In contrast, open source has no licence fees, no restrictions and can mean savings of between tens of thousands to several million pounds for large businesses.

Stability and control

The history of computing is peppered with hostile acquisitions, motivated by a desire to shut down competitors and force customer migration. Open source is the disruptor which cant be acquired or shut down. Its in thepublic domain and will continue to evolve and improve while theres a community of developers working on it. You cant be forced to upgrade either. If youre happy with the software youre using, nobody can make youchange.

Support

Theres a substantive difference between support from open source vendors and proprietary ones. For the former, its an important income stream. In order to maintain customer loyalty, support services need to be of thehighest calibre and highly responsive to customer needs. For the latter, support is often an afterthought as the customer is already locked in.

Freedom of choice

Open source ultimately provides greater freedom. Companies can download it and host the software on their own servers, or keep it in a public, private, or hybrid cloud. It can be accessed as software-as-a-service (SaaS),kept it in its current format or tailored by companies themselves, the vendor or third parties. Its the ultimate freedom.

Dale Murray is CEO at Stirling-based open source software developer SalesAgility

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Five reasons why your business should adopt open source software - Insider.co.uk