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

Surprise

[kevin_conaway]

Yes users, the time has come. The IT landscape is shifting directions. Fortunately, its shifting in the direction that we provide services for. Come on over to our website, see what we're offering.

I'm always a little skeptical of companies that fund surveys whose results jive with their business offerings.

Why am I not surprised?

[rolfwind]

Frankly I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier and bigger.

Too bad most custom solutions aren't Open Source. At least open source to the company that uses it. How many companies have at least some custom solution to one problem or another, implemented even in dos, that could be greatly expanded in capability if it simply could be built upon or ported to a more capable platform or what not.

How often can closed-source one-size-fits-all solutions be the be-all and end-all of your needs?

Not to mention that closed-source solutions, by there very nature tend to be more inflexible and what's more - organizations grow to depend on them (and their proprietory file formats) more than they should like.

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!

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?