Software Pluralism

Software Pluralism

User Benefits

Abstract

With the availability of more mature, robust and popular open source software, the user benefits of open source solutions are being increasingly embraced. This section discusses some of the benefits associated with the adoption of open source software.

User Benefits

Before open source software achieves economics of scale, it is anticipated that with less in-house experience and higher consulting costs, firms might end up spending more in the adoption of Linux-based solutions. However, with the availability of more mature, robust and popular open source software, the benefits of open source solutions are being increasingly embraced.

According to a Forrester survey, low acquisition cost is the most cited reason for the adoption of open source products. Open source software is "free" in the sense that there is no licensing fee for using it. Although other costs such as support and services costs might not be negligible, the choices of such add-ons depend on open source usage and expertise of a firm. In addition, costs on commodity hardware are much less than those for Unix-based systems. It is estimated that, with the same workloads, savings could be as high as 45% in hardware and hardware maintenance. In the extreme case of a company building a brand new IT department from scratch, the cost of adopting a Linux-based solution would include only deployment, as there would be no costs for migration, integration, or maintenance of hybrid systems. Other cost-savings may be seen from open source options up the software stack. Take open source office suite software as an example. Assuming that proprietary products cost roughly $300 per user, in an organization of 10,000 people, the savings can be up to $3 millions, which is significant.

In a commissioned case study conducted by Forrester in 2004 on costs, cost savings, flexibility, and risks associated with the implementation of open source products from JBoss, Inc., the three-year return on investment (ROI) was estimated to be a very favorable 273%, and the three-year net present value (NPV) of savings $213,600. In addition, staff productivity and future flexibility benefits to organization were reported as enhanced.

Wide choice is another benefit open source products bring to the users. Open source software runs on a variety of hardware platforms and offers alternatives to proprietary software. Thus, users have more options as to which hardware to run and what software packages to purchase.

With the options of open source software, users may have greater leverage in negotiating with proprietary software vendors and do not have to completely rely on a specific vendor. In this sense, the open source movement helps bring competition to the marketplace that eventually benefits software users. Furthermore, with the maturity and popularity of open source solutions, customers will have more vendors to choose from for installing and maintaining open source software. The rise of open source services also reflects how software distributors are increasingly competing in the area of service, not just software product.

Finally, higher quality is often claimed as a benefit of open source. However, it is not clear that these claims are well founded (see discussion under “Software Quality”).

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Conclusion

There are several user benefits associated with the adoption of open source software. These include low cost for acquisition of the software, low cost for commodity hardware, and wide choice of open source products. In addition, the open source movement helps bring competition to the marketplace that eventually benefits all software users.

References

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