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Tomorrow's most vital applications are being built with open source technologies — today
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 Dear Inner Circle readers,
The world's population is estimated at over 6 billion, and approximately 1 billion people are connected to the network, with millions joining each week. Consequently, for many companies, the network is becoming a core resource for engaging customers and creating a competitive advantage. This adaptation of technology is also having a huge impact on the role of IT and the value that IT brings to running a business.
With these changes, the leadership challenge for the next decade will be the evolution of the CEO, CIO, and CTO roles and the awareness of the dynamics between them. These responsibilities will not only continue to mature individually but also with unity due to developing interdependencies. And the forward-looking, innovative companies that make this transition with speed, foresight, and clarity are the ones most likely to excel regardless of current size or longevity in the market.
History is full of examples in which open standards prevailed because they grew markets, while proprietary systems failed because they did not. Consider the escalating speed and rate of change in computing and communications during the last 25 years — from the mainframe era and Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) to the Internet and anywhere, anytime, anyplace computing on any device. Even when Time magazine named the computer "Person of the Year" in 1982, no one could have predicted how profoundly technology would change our personal lives and the way we do business.
With the birth of the World Wide Web (and the phenomenal growth of the Internet), openness has become obligatory and interconnectivity essential. It is accepted today that businesses and individuals buy computers for access to the Internet — yet more than two decades ago, there were no URLs posted on advertisements and people bought PCs because they were "personal productivity tools." Today it is hard to find a business article that doesn't combine "e-" with commerce, marketing, strategy, or business.
Open source technology has become the foundation of today's network economy as organizations from startups to big companies, governments, and huge Web-based service and sales organizations use standards-based open technology to develop massive applications — for everything from basic business databases to mission-critical transaction and support systems.
Open Source Offers Greater Choice and Flexibility
From the CXO's perspective, open source offers three tremendous advantages:
Open source software is innovative and comes without the risk of vendor lock-ins. Developers can try out several products before settling on the one that suits the application the best, all without any front-end costs; and they can usually change products later on if they become dissatisfied.
- It gives businesses the greatest choice
- It lowers barriers to entry to low cost or no cost
- It provides the most flexible, cost-efficient exit strategy (a low barrier to exit)
With open source software and advancements in virtualized architectures, organizations gain the freedom to choose which applications and infrastructure components they want to evaluate (at no cost), which of these solutions they want to deploy, and how they want to pay for that deployment — on-site licenses, hosted solutions, or software as a service (SaaS).
Open source software is innovative and comes without the risk of vendor lock-ins. Developers can try out several products before settling on the one that suits the application the best, all without any front-end costs; and they can usually change products later on if they become dissatisfied. Even where commercial suppliers act as intermediaries to the open source community, or other support options are available, the costs of a finished open source solution are typically lower than a proprietary one.
Other advantages of open source for enterprise IT groups stem from its development in a community effort that fosters interoperability, embraces the most innovative technology for every type of solution, and allows code to be modified to suit the exact needs of every project, all at a lower cost than proprietary systems.
One of the reasons governments of developing countries adopt open source is because they believe they can scale to accommodate a massive population without licensing penalties and without dependence on specific vendors in terms of control of technology. Also, with elevated security threats, governments can implement rock-solid security and encryption modules developed specially for them.
Adoption in India
India is growing as an economy and as an IT superpower. Enterprises in India are slowly but steadily adopting theopen source model. Open-source software has been deployed by both the national and state governments in India, although many of the large-scale deployments have happened in the states. Significant support is being extended by the central government as well. Open source software offers India tremendous opportunity to boost the country's prosperity and future innovation.
India's governments are showing exemplary leadership. State governments in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi and Maharashtra have begun embracing the open source model. Kerala was one of the first states to take the lead in open source and has added yet another feather to its cap by becoming the first state to completely banish proprietary software and allow only GNU/Linux free software to be used in the mandatory IT test of a half million students at the state SSLC examinations.
Even the armed forces are seeing the value proposition in open source software and is using it as it goes net-centric. Indian enterprises too are adopting open source; the reason is simple: lower costs, better performance, and increased security.
Open source in India offers a great solution to bridge the digital divide and take the benefits of technology to a larger cross section of people. Open source adoption is also driving innovation. With open source software adoption rising rapidly, particularly in China and India, Gartner believes that by 2010 it will account for 20 percent of the global software market, displacing over USD 100 billion in revenues from traditional software vendors.
If the global digital economy has one great strength, it is its capacity for continuously replacing old, outdated ideas and technologies with newer, more innovative ones. We've seen the power of openness and innovation in mobile technologies, which is improving the quality of life and economic status of millions in emerging markets.
We are now at a similar inflection point when it comes to information technology, and our future as an industry will be defined by the fundamental power of openness, whether that's open source software or IT systems built on open standards. This is a critical and exciting time for emerging markets such as India — the opportunity is significant. Going forward, adoption rates will grow, slowly but steadily.
Fueling Innovation Everywhere
Policymakers and technologists worldwide share a common goal: to improve people's lives. Sun Microsystems is actively engaged in finding solutions to pressing issues ranging from global warming, waste reduction, innovation and competitiveness to international trade, technology policy, open government, and transparency for investors. The decisions made have a profound impact on the lives of millions of citizens the world over. Sun believes that the network holds the answers to the most pressing issues. Everyone, everywhere should have access to the network. This will only become a reality if it is possible to truly eliminate the barriers to access. And it's why Sun's technical, business, and policy teams are so focused on open, standards-based technologies.
Open Source Makes Good Economic Sense
The shift to open source applications and commodity infrastructures is as inevitable as the rising of the tide. Why? It makes good economic sense.
Never before have so many been able to access so much computing power so easily. Research firm IDC predicts that worldwide revenue for open source software will balloon to $5.8 billion in 2011. That's a growth rate three times faster than the total software market, according to IDC, though open source constitutes a mere one percent of worldwide software sales. The network has changed the way people develop software, how they acquire it, and what they do with it to create value. Open source is fueling a Participation Age that lets innovators, such as developers, stand on the shoulders of technology giants to fuel their own success.
The challenge for CXOs is to identify the opportunities, see them for what they are worth in the eyes of their customers and the market as a whole, and adapt their business models to those conditions.
Anil Valluri
Vice President & Managing Director
Sun Microsystems India
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