Atos Origin Predicts Open Source Landscape

Rob writes "IT services provider Atos Origin has predicted a forthcoming change in the software landscape based on the results of a survey it has carried out in conjunction with the UK's National Computing Centre. The survey, which was compiled through over 140 web-based questionnaires completed by senior UK IT professionals in May and June, indicated that over 60% believe open source will either increase its presence in certain business areas or be a fundamental component in core IT systems, while 73% expect open source to develop within their organizations' IT strategy over the next five years."

Comments

From the article...

[tcopeland]

There were also a number of technologies that respondents were well aware of, but which most would not consider deploying, with OpenOffice, PostgreSQL, JBoss, Thunderbird, Mambo, Zope, Exim, and Sleepycat, falling into this category.

That seems odd... I wouldn't expect PostgreSQL to fall into that category, especially with all the EnterpriseDB stuff going on.

Apropos of nothing, if you need to get Jabber to log to a PostgreSQL database, look yonder.

Then why is it that ...

[alucinor]

I currently work for a company that's being employed by Atos to supply the NHS with a J2EE solution. So what I want to know is why if the UK is so keen on open source, are we having to use nothing but AIX backend servers and Win32 web and app servers?

Because the NHS, like several other areas in UK government IT, are standardizing on Microsoft technologies (yeah, the AIX is IBM, but it's still closed as hell). That means thousands of hospitals and clinics (and other government entities) are locking themselves into Windows for another 10+ years right now!

Not even close

[mgkimsal2]

It'll finally be up to par with MS.

WHOAH. I take it you don't use MS SQL Server (or possibly even the MSDE)?

I'm qualifying this by saying that I've been primarily a LAMP developer for going on 9 years. MySQL is great for many things, and no, I'm not even going to be condescending and say just "small" projects. I've seen it used on very large projects, and it does fine.

However, it will not be 'on par' with MS SQL. I dare say MySQL5 won't even be 'on par' with MS SQL Server 2000, which is, what, 5 or 6 years old now?. The difference is, imo, mostly in the support tools around the product.

Something as simply as the index tuning wizard in MSSQL - there are no equivalent tools in the MySQL world (yet?). 'EXPLAIN' doesn't come close, and i f you haven't used MS SQL, you won't know what I mean. If you *have* used it, and still claim that MySQL5 will be 'on par' with MS SQL, you're not living in the real world.

Statements like these are what cause non MySQL users to dismiss MySQL supporters claims.

Clarifying it by saying "for some (or many) uses MySQL5 may be a good alternative to MS SQL" might be acceptable. Claiming equal status is just wrong.

More likely

[Anonymous Coward]

that 100% of companies will use open source to leverage better deals out of commercial software companies. It happens over and over again, and the OSS community never learns.

As to development? Never happen. Open source API's are too poorly designed, making them difficult to use. Take, for example, openssl and the Microsoft CryptoAPI. Now, anyone who has ever used both of these APIs can tell you that they implement pretty much the same functionality - and that same person will tell you that CryptoAPI is intuitive to use while OpenSSL is arcane and difficult.

And thats just one example, there are hundreds more - DirectX v. OpenGL, WinHTTP v. cURL, the list goes on...

No, until some decent design people join open source, I'll stick to companies like Sun and Microsoft tyvm.

You actually need to read the article

[panurge]

Because the content is interesting and a lot more quantitative than the submitter indicates. The meat includes:

Of that 73%, 4% expect open source to dominate and be widespread throughout the organization, with the rest expecting the influence of open source software to be limited to core areas, with 41% of those identifying individual business areas as growth opportunities, 17% expecting it to be a fundamental component of core IT systems, and 11% expecting it to be a niche option in non-core IT functions

This is hardly a ringing endorsement. Even more insteresting is the list further down of predicted successful and unsuccessful technologies. As might be expected, the things actually doing well - Apache, MySQL, are visible and expected to continue to be so. Open Office is clearly seen as a failure. Surprisingly, to my mind, so is Thunderbird. And so is JBoss, while Tomcat seems to be better regarded.

There is no ammunition here at all for MS-bashers, and the scenario it paints is a bit gloomy. If in 5 years time everybody is still supporting Office - which, regardless of whether it is the MS version or the OO version is, to my mind, still a truly terrible way to meet the day to day needs of most ordinary office workers - we will surely have learnt nothing and done nothing to meet the real needs of business.

It would be nice to think that this particular survey will go the way of all preductions of the future and be wrong, but actually it seems to point to a growing IT trend - inertia. It makes little difference whether it's computers or SUVs, the answer to all problems is to do more of the same. Perhaps slightly lower fuel consumption immediately offset by dragging around some new feature. 17 inch wheels/monitors? Next year we'll have 19 inch wheels/monitors! And in a nod to the environment, perhaps in 5 years time 5% will be recyclable/OSS. Meanwhile, can anyone explain to me, clearly and convincingly, exactly how the average joe office worker's life benefits from the capabilities of Excel in 2005 versus Lotus 123 in, say, 1990, excluding Y2000 fixes, speed and memory?

Hilarious

[overshoot]

This is a hoot.

Atos/Origin manages $EMPLOYER's network and has to be one of the most software libre-hostile service organizations around.

On the other hand

[thelexx]

Some businesses are burying their heads further up Microsofts ass than ever. The lords on high at the company I work for, a GM sub-subsidiary, just decreed that there will be no open source used for anything, anywhere. The only exceptions will be on a case by case basis providing you have spent the time to write up a business need proposal for why you want something. We can't even run Firefox/Moz anymore and the RHEL desktop I've run for the last three years just went by-by in favor of Win2k. But NO, I'M not fucking bitter...