There's been some interesting reports lately on how open source software is eating into the traditional license and maintenance fees of the closed source legacy vendors. Not only is open source a viable alternative to many closed source offerings, but just the fact that you're looking at open source is enough of a threat to some vendors that they will sometimes discount up to 80%. Just put up a Linux poster and wear a MySQL t-shirt and you'll get your costs down. Or better yet, start moving to open source where it makes sense, especially new web-based applications.
- InfoWorld: Bargaining with Microsoft
- Tech Target: CIO's Guide to Negotiations
- Redmond Mag: Countdown to Your New Deal Part 2, Part 3
- Gartner: 5 Leverage Points with Microsoft (paid)
*nod* Closed-source companies, especially for web applications (or applications that can be replaced by web applications) should be worried.
Web applications have the distinct advantage of in-place upgrades -- meaning that only one upgrade, on the server, needs to take place. User problems are either a cause of bad data (ie, wrong settings or corruption) or browser malfunction, as opposed to particular client quirks.
As well, minor upgrades are easy to perform. A web application can patch once a week, or once a day, without having to worry that all the clients accepted the update. And minor bug fixes don't have to wait for a release.
Not having a traditional release is great, because you don't have to worry about who downloaded what, or if your clients are using the latest version.
Combine that with the power of open source -- more folks are looking for bugs, more folks are fixing bugs, and security vulnerabilities aren't kept quiet -- and you're looking at a winning combination.
Posted by: Sheeri Kritzer | July 16, 2006 at 06:19 PM