Actually it’s in front of you – on your phone, your set-top box and quite possibly it runs your in-flight entertainment. I’m talking about Linux, and its quiet dominance in certain areas. This article in Tech Radar explains how and why Linux is doing so well in these hidden quarters. Open Source isn’t some strange weirdy experimental operating system, it’s underpinning NASA and the London Stock Exchange, among many many other well-known organisations. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for pretty much anyone. Let us know if you’d like to join those in the know – drop us a line at info@opensure.net to find out how we can help your company join the open source revolution.
Lots of businesses we speak to rely on a particular piece or type of software to do their core activity. Whether it be publishing, manufacturing or design, to name but a few of the sectors we work with, some things are sacred and that’s fine. The beauty of open source products is that they are so flexible and cheerfully work alongside all sorts of other programs, open source, proprietary or something in-between.
The practical application of this for your company is that you can continue using any number of applications that your daily business relies upon (chances are there’s an open source equivalent, but we understand that people build up a relationship with a program and don’t want to lose that), but can use open source in other areas and immediately reduce your IT spend.
Take publishing. We can provide email and host a website, microsites and blogs on open source software, while the publishing house happily continues to use its long-standing publishing software without a hitch. Immediately the publishing house saves on the server licensing costs that hosting companies that use proprietary server software have to pass on. Take that one step further and lose Microsoft Office. Replace it with OpenOffice or Libre and do away with licensing and upgrade issues. Abandon that eye-wateringly expensive proprietary accounting package – Basil, is it? Oregano? – and replace it with open source and the savings mount up very fast. But it’s a pick and mix system: keep the proprietary systems you want or need, and go open source for the rest.
Does that sound like something your company could benefit from? Are you interested in finding out which functions in your company could go open source? We’re always very happy to chat (talk is free, as in free beer) so please get in touch via info@opensure.net – we look forward to hearing from you.
Not a bottle but a laptop, tablet, smartphone or anything else not nailed down that you use to access the internet. This is the second article we’ve read this week that looks at the prospects for people taking their own computing power with them, whether that’s children taking their own hardware to school or employees using their own hardware at work. The later case is more complex as issues of corporate security, support contracts and so on raise their tedious heads, all covered in this BBC article.
This all chimes in very nicely with the video we included in our newsletter yesterday about schools saving money by using open source software. Aside from the raft of other advantages schools gain by using open source, imagine the benefit of at one fell swoop doing away with the crippling cost of software purchase (plus licensing updates and so on) AND hardware purchase and maintenance. It would be a staggering saving for every school in the country and it is so achievable.
Of course, immediately, it’s pointed out that not every child has access to a computer, never mind something smart and portable, and it would be disingenuous of us to dismiss this consideration; it’s a consideration that applies to so many consumables but it can’t be allowed to prevent progress. Mobile phones come into their own here – and is anyone seriously going to suggest there’s a high school pupil in the country who doesn’t have a mobile phone?? For years there’s been speculation about on-line learning doing away with schools (they appear to co-exist quite happily) but perhaps this is the most likely marriage of technology and schooling.
What do you think? Leave us a comment.