Open Source Continues to Gain in Popularity
New analysis suggests that a whopping 85 percent of companies are already using open-source software, with most of the remaining 15 percent expected to make the transition and begin doing so sometime within the next year.
However, only 31 percent of companies surveyed by Gartner had implemented formal policies for evaluating and procuring open-source software (OSS).
The survey of 274 end-user organizations across the Asian/Pacific, Europe and North American markets was conducted in May and June of this year.
Respondents to the extensive computer services survey pointed to cost as a prime motivator for their adoption of open source, with some also suggesting OSS provided some protection against single-vendor lock-in.
Other reasons listed for this significant expansion of open source included fast time to market and the avoidance of complex procurement rules and procedures, respondents said.
Of course, this isn't without side effects.
Companies must have a policy for procuring OSS, in other words, deciding which applications will be supported by OSS, and identifying the element(s) of intellectual property risk or supportability risk associated with using OSS.
As far as the business processes for which open-source software is being used, customer service was first on the list, although enterprise integration, finance and administration and business analytics also proved popular.
