OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS: Opportunities Abound

Opportunities in this domain are opening up and promise bright days ahead
for early-movers.

Initially when there was a stressing need to implement IT, we didn’t want
to experiment and so we preferred technologies from Microsoft. But lately we
find that it is proving to be a costly affair. Every time there is a new release
or version change, we have to shell out more than what we initially paid. Now we
are seriously looking at open source as an alternative."

This is what a DGM-IT at one of the leading public sector banks, said at a
panel discussion on open source at the recently-held Nasscom 2004. And this goes
on to show the rapid change in perception that’s happening at the end-user
level about open source technology.

For you, as a solution provider, it only means good news. Why? Because today
the customer is demanding choice. Choice of being able to use products/solutions
that are flexible to his needs, are cost-effective and provide an equally
reliable output that a proprietary model-based solutions can offer.

And if those in the business of providing solutions can offer customers this
choice, they can be rest assured of a whole new set of opportunities waiting to
be explored. For those, who are trying to move up the value chain by entering
the solutions domain, open source could be just the right avenue to make an
entry. Let’s find out how?

OPENING UP TO OPEN SOURCE

Open source (also interchangeably referred as Linux) as it stands now in
India, is coming out of the ‘skepticism’ phase. Customers are increasingly
getting aware that Linux as a platform, and applications developed around it,
work fine. It is also beyond doubt that over a next couple of years, solutions
build on Linux will find itself in the ‘assessment’ and ‘adoption’
phase. In fact, a significant number of user organizations are already in
various stages of using Linux for some/many of their applications.

While its adoption at the desktop-level may still be minuscule compared to
the Windows’ share, at server level, Linux and other non-Windows kind of
operating systems command over 10% share. And this figure, assert all the
leading hardware vendors (like Intel, IBM, HP, Sun), will grow significantly.
Software vendors like Oracle’s support for Linux is already well-known.

Not surprising then that both IBM and HP have put an aggressive focus on
pushing Linux-based solutions like never before. And the reason is very simple.
They too realize the need to offer customers more choices, better price
advantages and yet deliver on performance.

"In a free market economy that exists currently, users demand freedom of
choice. They want to spend less but not compromise on reliability and
robustness. And Linux meets all these needs wonderfully," explains Sandeep
Menon, Linux Business Manager, IBM (ASEAN/South Asia).

Understandably, these are the very reasons why solution providers would now
need to seriously re-skill themselves to be able to offer Linux-based solutions.
And cost-benefits would be the topmost reason. According to a Dataquest-MAIT
study, companies using Linux report cost savings ranging from 40% to as high as
70%.

WHERE TO BEGIN?

"Don’t even think of offering end-to-end solutions on Linux platform
at the first go. Begin by doing a small implementation,

win your customer’s confidence and then take the next step," advises Amit
Bhoraskar, Head-Alliances, Red Hat India. And right he is, for migration to an
open source platform is not just about overcoming a technology barrier but also
a mindset barrier.

The experts in this domain suggest the best way to begin offering solutions
on Linux is to take up edge-of-network projects. These include setting up mail,
proxy or web server, putting up firewall and intrusion detection systems in
place. "That’s how we started and today we have evolved to a stage
wherein, we have our own solutions, which we productize and sell," informs
Prakash Advani, Senior VP, Netcore Solutions.

Interestingly with the kind of opportunities that are available, Netcore
today has managed to create a different niche for itself. Every time it develops
a solution for its customer, it converts it into a product, which it further
sells to customers of similar profile. And given the very flexible nature of
open source, it is also able to offer a high degree of customization to its
client.

So once a solution provider has started offering solutions for the network,
the road becomes clear to pitch in for porting middleware like database servers,
operating systems for small and mid-range servers and other applications on to
Linux. Currently, this is the most exciting segment to address as there’s an
immense focus from hardware vendors on the same.

Further, with ERP companies like SAP offering Linux-ready solutions, it won’t
be long before enterprise-wide critical applications too start getting migrated
to Linux. And, that would mean high-value opportunities for solution providers.

SUPPORT, INNOVATION: THE DIFFERENTIATORS

One may ask here as to if all the solution providers do decide to offer
solutions on open source, what is it that is going to keep each one of them
competitive? After all the basic cost of software is not too high and hence one
cannot use price as the differentiator. Further, the solutions too would more or
less address similar business needs.

Answer here is: support and innovation. Support because the very basic
revenue model for any open source-based offering is service-based and not
product-based. It is the level of service and handholding that a solution
provider is able to give to his customer, which will ultimately decide the
latter’s preference for a particular partner.

In fact, productizing your support offerings itself is not a bad idea as is
done by Red Hat. "We have converted our support contracts into a product
and depending on the SLAs (service level agreements), the customer can pay a
price for the same," informs Amit.

Innovation is another key to differentiate from the competition. Netcore
Solutions is a good case in point here. The company realized that it had the
skill-sets to devise newer and better solutions for its customers. And at the
same time, it could develop the solutions in such a way that it can get re-sold
to another customer with similar needs. The company also ensured that the
solution had enough flexibility to allow customizations to suit client’s
unique requirements.

There is also another opportunity by developing hardware appliances for
specific needs. Like what Allied Digital is planning to do. The company is
looking at developing appliances for firewalls, intrusion detection, and so on.
This it would do by taking parts of the Linux kernel useful for a particular
application, ‘harden’ it and then club it with necessary hardware to come up
with a device that will serve independently.

By hardening a kernel we mean picking only those part of the source code that
is required for a certain function and then making it as an independent program
to run the appliance.

While undertaking such an activity calls for very specialized skills and may
not be feasible for may solution providers, the essence is like any other
business, innovation is what will help you survive. The innovation could also be
on the front of creating newer applications that your customer might not have
thought of yet helps in increasing his productivity.

THE ROADBLOCKS

One of the most significant roadblocks that a partner will face while
offering open source-based solutions to customers is their mindset. Unlike
Microsoft, which has the marketing muscles and money to aggressively promote its
proprietary products, open source works more word-to-mouth than anything else.
As a result, many of the user organizations are yet not ‘comfortable’ with
jumping on to an unknown territory.

"To a great extent it is this mental block that needs to be overcome
before a client can say yes to a Linux solution," tells Bimal Raj, CEO,
Allied Digital Systems. There’s also certain amount of myth that still floats
around open source (Read: 5 myths on open source).

5 MYTHS ON OPEN SOURCE
1.	Open source is free	It is not free but is cost-effective over proprietary software. It includes the cost of support and development
2.	Being open, no one will own up the responsibility	Not just vendors who have a good support mechanism, but you as a provider of the solution would also be responsible for handling any issues that might arise
3.	Since the source code is open, it is vulnerable to security threats	Source code of the core technology can be viewed doesn’t mean that anyone can hack or pose security risks to the solution built on that technology. On the contrary due to its community support nature, a patch is made available for any security vulnerability in open source much faster than it gets done in proprietary applications environment
4.	There is a huge learning curve in adopting open source	Learning curve is there all right. But it is more about being able to do things better in a newer than a difficult manner
5.	The existing hardware and other proprietary software-based applications have to be junked.	Not at all and that’s the beauty of open source. It’s as inter-operable as it can be, supports most of the hardware architectures and works well with other Windows-based applications

In fact one could still find users who believe Linux is all about command
lines and hence is not at all user-friendly. While the

fact is that at a desktop level, Linux today comes in such GUIs (graphic user
interfaces) that could make users forget

Windows.

So the need for a solution provider is to tackle such myths, and show the
customer benefits in terms of cost, stability, scalability and
inter-operability. Once the customer gets convinced on these fronts, a partner
can rest assured that the Penguin will find its way into the user’s
organization.

GOLDIE