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New OSS Doomed In Enterprise?
Rob wrote to mention a Computer Business Review Online article which posits that immature open source software is doomed in an enterprise environment nowadays. From the article: "Open-source startups and relative newcomers must target a new breed of CIOs, which Graf dubs chief process innovation officers. Rather than old-school CIOs who focus on a company's data management, these guys design processes with the company's network. "If you want to become strategic to the company, you need to deal with business processors. 'The key question for open source is, Which open source technologies are mature enough to survive the consolidation that's coming?' Graf said. 'Linux? Definitely. Eclipse? Definitely. Mozilla? Most likely.'"
My thought is that the problem is that few enterprise businesses are assisting in developing the maturity of applications that would enable more widespread use. Every large enterprise has small projects that would benefit from open source tools, etc. out there, but if the enterprise isn't willing to spend the developer resources, then it essentially locks the door to the acceptance of more mature open source tools that are validated "in-house", thus facilitating greater acceptance throughout.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Read the MS EULA.. They can't be held accountable for anything.
What they offer is paid support. 3rd party paid support is often availible for OSS, but some exec's probably feel it need to come directly from the maker.
relatively immature open source software has little chance of surviving in the enterprise, said an SAP AG executive during a speech at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco.
D'oh? News value? 1) immature software has never had good survival rates in the enterprise environment and 2) SAP probably wants to sell SAP software, so even if there was an open source, MATURE application, that would be enterprise strength, to be used where SAP is used, I don't somehow think that SAP would suggest anyone to use that.
Of course immature OSS is doomed in the Enterprise. Who wants to use any immature software where correct functioning is important? Software being open source or closed source has nothing to do with that. At the end of the day performance is the only thing that counts.
-- Cheers!
This is a crock. As others have pointed out already, immature software is unlikely to be used in an enterprise environment (unless it was developed in house) regardless of the license. But wait, there's more. I happen to have a number of immature open source projects of my own at the moment, and I don't give a flying fig if they "make it" in an enterprise environment.
Why? Because unlike Microsoft, I don't expect any revenue from them and thus won't be disappointed if I don't get any. I wrote them because I needed them and open sourced them because I wanted a few more eyeballs on them. But even if no one else ever even downloads them, I'm not <voice='spooky'> Dooomed </voice> because I'm not selling them in the first place. For the vast majority of open source projects, saying that they won't make it in "the Enterprise" is about as relevant as saying that cows will never use the iPod.
--MarkusQ
Large companies buy software from "stable organizations" not because they're worried about the quality of the software, but because it's safe. Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft or IBM (or, increasingly, Linux or Eclipse). You're part of a crowd -- safety in numbers.
A purchaser at a corporation might get *fired* (cutting his salary to zero) because he bought something that turns out to not be what the company wants, but he isn't going to get that much of a reward (say, doubling his salary) if he manages to save the company the cost of the purchase by finding a free alternative.
As a result, it's in everyone's best interest to keep their head down, run with the herd, and make maximally ass-covering decisions.
If I'm trying to solve an engineering problem, I'm more than happy to use all kinds of high-quality packages that aren't backed by a large company. But that's because I'm trying to solve an engineering problem.
A purchaser isn't trying to solve an engineering problem. A purchaser is trying to solve the problem of how to maximize his job safety and income. And today's corporate reward structure heavily penalizes risk-taking.
If you want to produce solutions more in line with actually solving the original engineering problem, you go work at a startup or other small company where people don't have any problem with risk-taking.
If you go to work at a large company, you're going to be working with a large collection of highly risk-adverse people. That may be perfectly reasonable for them -- if one is middle-aged and has a wife, kids, and a house, stability matters a hell of a lot to you. If that doesn't fit with your mindset, though, you might want to try out those smaller companies.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Please name one example of Microsoft every being held accountable for their software failing to work as promised?
As already pointed out, MS will do very little.
That's not entirely true. Microsoft will sell you an entire army of tech support drones and Microsoft Certified Support Providers. That way your boss can go back to his boss and say, "Microsoft is working on it." To which your boss's boss will say, "I'm glad we paid for Microsoft! Just imagine how difficult it would be to get support if we paid for Linux!" Thus your boss's neck is saved from the chopping block by simply passing the buck.
If your boss decided to keep things internal, he'd have to tell his boss, "We're working on the problem right now and hope to have it fixed soon. We could purchase support from company XYZ to speed up the process." To which your boss's boss will say, "If we're supporting it internally, why did it break in the first place and when is it going to be fixed? Is that third party the vendor? Then how do they know anything about anything?" If he gives the answer, "See, this open source stuff...," he'll hear the words, "You're fired!" before he finishes the sentence.
Of course, your boss's boss may be smarter than that. But many managers won't take the that risk with their own necks.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The point is not that Microsoft can be held accountable -- it's that the purchaser cannot be held responsible.
Corporations are highly risk-adverse in culture.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.