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Leveraging Linux when Hardware is a Commodity?
AKInnovation asks: "My company produces peripheral hardware used in commercial applications, such as retail POS. In our market, amongst other such hardware manufacturers, we are the only ones to offer Linux software solutions (drivers). This distinction has recently won us several large accounts. When the hardware becomes a commodity, and you must compete on the software side to keep the money coming in, how can releasing your code as Open Source be rationalized to management?"
Software is fast becoming a commodity too - if you're in the US, you're competing with code churned out in India, and pretty soon those guys are going to be undercut by code factories in places like the Philippines, and so on, and so on...
Very few organisations can rely on software for their *only* competitive advantage... Microsoft are making game consoles, Red Hat are branding themselves as a solutions provider and SCO decided to pursue racketeering as a business model.
So compete on service; offer value-adds like training and consulting, facilities management, hosting, colocation, monitoring etc.
If you are the only ones in your market to "offer Linux software solutions" then you are shooting yourself in the foot by open sourcing the drivers. In other words the only thing that seperates you from your competitors right now is your linux drivers and by giving them away you are levelling the palying field and removing your main advantage.
This is why you may struggle to convince the management that open sourcing your drivers is a good thing(TM). I think your best chance of convining the management is if you present to them a number of case studies of companies open sourcing drivers. For example, Intel releasing modified open source drivers for Centrino chispets. I also think that you will need to present an effective system for managing the open source project.