Open source technology sees mass acceptance

Open source software such as Linux is gaining traction in both the public and private sectors

More than one-third of companies plan to migrate mission-critical software to open source in the next 12 months, according to a report from consulting and technology firm Accenture.

The survey questioned 300 large organisations in the public and private sectors, two-thirds (69 per cent) of whom said they would increase investment in open source technology in 2010.

Some 50 per cent said they were fully committed to open source in their business while almost a third (28 per cent) said they were experimenting with open source and keeping an open mind about it.

Benefits of open source include lower cost, greater interoperability with other products and the avoidance of being locked in to proprietary solutions.

Furthermore, two-thirds of respondents (65 per cent) said they have a fully documented strategic approach for using open source in their business, while another third (32 per cent) are developing a strategy plan.

These findings come after some research conducted by Techmarketview last week, showing that although suppliers were largely happy with government proposals around IT, there were concerns about its use of open source software.

A primary concern for the public sector is around security and data: open source companies are not as regimented in their patch releases as proprietary software vendors such as Microsoft, for example.

Other concerns come from the fact that there may be a lack of training in, and understanding of, new software, and some argue that the fact that the underlying code can be manipulated may not be such a good thing. "It is easy to undo interoperability features," said one expert.

Despite these public sector concerns, which are arguably surmountable with training and agreements with open source operators, the coalition government has announced its support for open source software, arguing that it helps maintain an open standards infrastructure. And the private sector in general is also pretty gung ho about the software, according to the Accenture report.

“This is the coming of age of open source,” said Paul Daugherty, chief technology architect, Accenture. “Through both our research and our work with clients, we are seeing an increase in demand for open source based on quality, reliability and speed, not just cost savings. This is a significant change on two years ago when uptake was driven mainly by cost savings. We can expect this trend to develop as open source continues to evolve and address even more business critical functions.”

There remain some barriers to the take-up of the technology, however, the biggest cited by 35 per cent of respondents is around training developers how to use open source.

There is also a lack of senior management support for the technology, and a lack of choice compared with proprietary software.