Pesky penguin eats £30 billion.

Penguins are lovable little animals whose antics amuse many of use. The flexibility and resilience of this birds is amazing; just like Linux and the Open Source industry. Vendors of proprietary software will agree with that statement. A study from the Standish Group, Trends in Open Source, suggest that Tux and co. are having a significant impact on the tech markets - a £30 billion effect. Admittedly, this represents only 6% of a yearly global market worth $1 Trillion but it’s still a lot of hard cash. The study suggests that if a commercial price were placed on Open Source and associated services it would exceed the combined total of Microsoft, Oracle and CA. Ouch! So much for certain software being ‘ubiquitous’!

In the bowels.

The old days of Open Source being on the fringes would appear to be well and truly gone. The functionality and capabilities of offerings such as MySQL rivals that of proprietary software. In many cases, the standards and requirements of free software meets those of enterprise organisations. So, why pay obscene amounts of money for licensing when you can get it for free?

Are the days of proprietary software numbered? No, not yet. Companies typically have a defined service model. This effectively requires them to do as they’re told and follow the well beaten path. How long will this continue? I’m not sure but consider this: the world economies are in a poor state. Businesses must continue to sell of die. Savings need to be made. Where do you think cost cutting exercises will be made? (that is, after they’ve sacked half of their staff!).

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