Opening Up for Open Source

jondaw writes "Businesses want to save money and boost IT efficiency. Can open-source software do the trick? Cnet attempts to answer this open ended question and provides a number of good case studies and examples."

Comments

Re:Free software pays for better support

[Glonoinha]

You have pretty much hit on the key metric that is most often overlooked - the cost of the people running it.

Honestly most of the time the cost of the actual package (database engine, operating system, office suite) is inconsequential when compared to the cost of the IT staff required to support it. The minute you need to hire a new guy (or worse yet, a $160 / hour consultant or contractor) to support the environment - you can throw the cost of the package ($100 - $1,000 - even $25,000) right out the window because compared to $100k ~ $300k per year for an additional single person to keep it all running, the cost of the warez is inconsequential.

In the long run you save the most money by standardizing on a single platform - not for cost savings at the software license level, but because a single IT staffer can support it and support even more of them (by himself) down the road. Same thing applies to hardware - shave $100 per machine by going with home-built hardware, a different configuration for every single machine, and the minute you need to add a $50k / year (fully burdened salary) to the payroll all of your savings are not only gone, but blown completely out of the water.

The only way OSS is going to save a company money is if it lets fewer people do the same stuff, or lets the same number of people do more stuff - regardless of licensing costs. Most companies spend more money each year on executive perks and bonuses than software licensing, so you are pretty much on the money when you say focus on TCO.

Here's another couple of case studies

[DSP_Geek]

If you run a Windows shop and mess up on a few licences, even by accident, the BSA will come down on you like a ton of bricks.

http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

As a matter of fact, they can screw up your operations by merely conducting an audit during your busiest season:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-996210.html

Even if you don't use the big-buck CRM packages mentioned in the article, if you're running a business the logical choice is to avoid the risk of extortion and/or business disruption by choosing open source and telling the BSA to stick it where the moon don't shine.

Re:Why is this on slashdot?

[cnerd2025]

Dude, /. was created by OSS proponents. There are no pretenses about the site. It glorifies the penguin and portrays Bill Gates as a borg. It is biased, but it's not pretending to be "fair and balanced" which is more than you can say for most other media.