ZDNet UK


Skip to Main Content

ZDNet.co.uk - Winner of Best Business Website 2007
  1. Home
  2. News
  3. Blogs
  4. Reviews
  5. Jobs
  6. Resources
  7. Community
  8. My ZDNet

 

ZDNet UK RSS Feeds


Office applications Toolkit

Open source picks some new fights

Martin LaMonica CNET News.com

Published: 22 Nov 2004 15:45 GMT

  • Email
  • Trackback
  • Clip Link
  • Print friendly
  • Post Comment

"It's not a matter of whether something does or doesn't exist in open source," Taylor says. "The question is the level of integration across the stack, up and down, and the amount of work to tune and build on top."

But software that's good enough is finding a home within businesses. And there's likely room for both proprietary and open-source approaches within the same company. Henry Peyret, an analyst at Forrester Research, says that open-source middleware projects typically focus on the low end of the market, rather than pursue the most advanced features, as commercial companies do. As such, open-source products do not always compete directly with established products, he says.

"Some customers recognise that they prefer some good-enough products, even if it does not have all the features," Peyret says. "If they want to have these specific features, they prefer to put in commercial products for that niche, not the overall enterprise."

Going with open-source middleware products does require willingness to accept risk and some in-house technical skills, Manes noted. Open-source projects could conceivably fizzle out, and the reliability of commercial support is not always clear.

"There is a cultural issue as to whether a given company is willing to invest the amount of effort in support and take the risk of using this open-source technology versus going with IBM," she says.

Next

Previous

1 2 3 4 5


  • Email
  • Trackback
  • Clip Link
  • Print friendlyPrint with Konica

Did you find this article useful?
358 out of 622 people found this useful


Full Talkback thread

0 comments


Company/Topic Alerts

Create a new alert from the list below:







Featured Talkback

In association with Intel
Why do so many (virtually all) software packages think that they are so important that they have to be started automatically every time the computer boots? What is the largest number of "speed access", "update check", "camera download" and whatever other background programs you have ever seen running? Of those, how many did you really need?

By: J.A. Watson

Read full story:
Annoying software: a rogues' gallery

Discussions

1000215420 1000215420

Everything can be counterfeited

Wednesday 15 October 2008, 10:55 PM

3 comments
1000215420 1000215420

Not live but right to reside

Wednesday 15 October 2008, 10:48 PM

4 comments
waynezoo waynezoo

For sale Brand New Nokia N85 for $300

Wednesday 15 October 2008, 9:33 PM

1 post

Vista Upgrade Blog

Vista - Still Running and Stable After...

Six weeks ago, when I wrote Renewed Adventures with Vista, I wondered if Microsoft had finally managed to fix it sufficiently that I wouldn't be forced to give up on it after a few... More

Post a comment

Official MS Windows 7 Bloggers

Check this out: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7...spx Its an official blog "Engineering Windows 7" Nothing. That's what is revealed. Until there is real... More

5 comments

Microsoft's Mojave just a desert vista

It didn't seem fair to wade into Microsoft's “Mojave Experiment” advert quite so soon after the flat earth incident. But The Economist has no such qualms: in this week's issue, it wonders... More

6 comments