Open Source Software

OSS diversifies as it gains acceptance

While Linux is the visible face of the Open Source movement, trends like interoperability have given additional impetus to the Open Source Market. By Faiz Askari

The Indian market for Open Source Software (OSS) is gaining momentum and it seems that this market will soon mature. A lot of organisations are using Open Source solutions even though they may not be running an end to end OSS solution stack. The OSS landscape in India is changing rapidly because of the demands that customers are placing on vendors to offer a business advantage, value for money and reduce the risk associated with making long-term technology investments. 

There are many organisations that still believe that Open Source means that everything comes for free and hence face problems when they go in for an actual implementation. Organisations need to understand that Open Source does not necessarily mean free, but this mental block of a certain segment of potential users, is going to be eradicated soon. At the same time there are many who understand the importance and value of Open Source and are making intelligent use of the same.

Manojit Majumdar, Country Leader, Open Source at IBM India says, “Open Source is a natural part of the evolution of the software industry. As we solve our customers’ problems, we should utilise different approaches in which OSS may be part of a solution.” 

While the market initially was driven by developers and geeks adopting OSS, adoption is increasingly driven by commercial and technology managers in the enterprise resulting in a rapid rise in overall growth. Srinivas Polisetty, Innovation head, CSC India cites some facts and figures, “The compounded annual growth rate for enterprise software and infrastructure usage of open source software are 45 percent and 23 percent respectively. The Indian market for open source has gone through similar growth levels.”

Abithab K Bhaskar Head Operations & Alliance – Global at Netcore says, “We have seen a positive attitude from some state governments as well, in the implementation of Linux in government schools. The low cost of acquisition has been the primary element in its success in the corporate sector. It is easy for SMBs to acquire a robust solution at a cheaper rate. Even big corporate houses are now opening up to open source based applications.” With proprietary software vendors being adamant about selling their software at a higher rate, OSS gained ground by providing quality software for free in local languages.

In India, enterprise productivity tools such as OpenOffice have become quite popular. However, to a large extent, enterprises haven’t adopted open source applications at the back-end. Arun Ramachandran, Head – Presales and Professional Services India and Subcontinent, Sybase India says, “Most legacy and pre-packaged back-end applications still use traditional solutions. However, the government has shown some interest in popularising Open Source Software.”

Correlating the growth of the Open Source market with the substantial growth (120 percent YoY) of Red Hat in India, Nandkumar Pradhan, President and MD, Red Hat India says, “Our growth signifies the enthusiastic acceptance of open source technologies. India is the fastest growing country in the APAC region second only to Japan. For Red Hat, the 3A model of Awareness, Appreciation and Adoption has helped achieve significant benefits in India over the past four years.” Localisation is important in making information available and taking computerisation to the masses. Red Hat offers localisation at the OS and the application level. The Indian languages supported are Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil and Punjabi.

TCO still matters

OSS has a significant presence in government, BFSI and telecom. This is a consequence of the basic needs of security and stability in these verticals which are addressed by Linux. Pradhan adds, “Linux machines are not only robust but they are also flexible. One can easily customise it to suit his needs as opposed to proprietary software which are built to address vertical needs and not individual requirements. This applies not only structurally but also financially. Our business model is devised around services and hence you only pay for what you use. In other business models, one usually buys less, maybe due to uncertainty of functioning or high expenses or one buys more than he requires building a safety net for the future and fails to optimise his investment.”

Going forward, OSS vendors will continue to focus more on SMEs and on fast growing areas like retail and manufacturing. “With our recent acquisition of the Open Source middleware company, JBoss, we aim to work closer with Indian software developers to build enterprise applications using Open Source stacks,” says Pradhan. 

“Open Source reduces costs significantly. Not just the initial cost but also that of maintenance. It is inherently more secure and stable providing bullet-proof reliability. In terms of future prospects, middleware is an area where I foresee huge potential for Open Source technologies. Things have already started rolling out in that particular direction,” says Faisal Paul, country manager high performance computing and Linux business at HP India.  

Explaining the TCO factor, Srinivas Polisetty, Innovation head, CSC India says, “The total cost of ownership of Linux is decreasing due to the increased availability of integrated commercial software out of the box on a Linux system.” Mail, application servers, database and programming options are all available on Linux boxes.

Referring to some bigger deployments of OSS, Seema Ambastha Director – Sales Consulting, Database Technologies, Oracle India, highlights the acceptance of Open Source as a cost saving tool saying, “Like elsewhere in the world, the low cost of ownership of Linux offers a great advantage for running enterprise applications. It is also becoming a preferred platform in high-end computing where security is of paramount importance as in the defence sector. It is already a popular development platform.”

From today’s perspective the factors propelling the adoption of Linux are:

Cost: This is by far the most obvious factor. While there is no cost of procuring the OS, a wide range of support options are available.

Interoperability: With proprietary systems working well with Linux, we will see adoption grow as the barriers of coexistence are overcome and the management of heterogeneous environments becomes easier.

Stability: Linux is known for its stability and for running mission critical and high volume businesses such as Yahoo.

Security: The very nature of Open Source enables the community to fix security vulnerabilities quickly.

Innovation: With more technology and creative talent working on Linux systems, there’s a lot of innovation coming from the community.

Choice: With Linux, users get a choice of buying from multiple vendors.

Interoperability is the word

Interoperability is a key trend in the Indian Open Source market. This will dominate the marketplace since the adoption of disparate systems over time is a fact of life at the average Indian enterprise. Companies like Microsoft recognise this trend in which organisations both in the private and the public sector are looking at interoperability in IT deployments to drive down costs and enhance their access to information. Radhesh Balakrishnan, Director, Platform Strategy, Microsoft India says, “An equally important trend is the customer’s focus on reducing TCO in today’s “Do More with Less” IT environment.” Interoperability brings the focus back to where it should be—addressing the customer’s needs.  Balakrishnan adds, “Customers are looking for interoperable solutions across infrastructure, application and business productivity layers of the IT stack and this brings to the surface the need to have a clear roadmap for interoperability on the part of vendors in the IT ecosystem.”

The Novell-Microsoft relationship bridges the gap between Open Source and proprietary software.  This is good for building customer confidence in Linux, the open source community and the broader IT ecosystem. 

Prakash Advani, Novell Linux Practice Head India says, “Interoperability is one of the key factors that drove our alliance with Microsoft. We live in a mixed IT environment world—there are applications run better on Linux, and others run better on Windows. We are ensuring that SUSE Linux and Windows work seamlessly with each other, taking this burden away from the customer.” With Linux and OSS shifting into a services-based revenue model, this gives scope for a lucrative market in India.

Applications running on one OS will not usually run on another OS. This is true for all OSs, even though more gets talked about it in the Open Source perspective. Majumdar says, “Linux supports robust interoperability with many popular proprietary Operating Systems. Which basically means one can have Linux as a desktop or server OS and can have some other OS on the desktop or server as a combination and they will work together.”

Paul adds, “In today’s complex scenario, it is important for any application to be interoperable. Customers want their desktop applications to be compatible with the server which may be running Linux. This is good for Open Source technology’s reach in the market.”

Talking about Microsoft’s perspective on interoperability, Balakrishnan says, “Interoperability has long been a feature of Microsoft’s technologies, achieved through extensive work with customers, partners, competitors, governments, and standards bodies. In its approach to interoperability, Microsoft strives to bring technologies to market in a way that balances competitive innovation with an ability to connect unique systems and applications. As a result, technologies such as XML and Web services, among many others, have evolved into industry standards.”

Microsoft’s approach towards interoperability by design strives for greater ‘out of the box’ connectivity for its customers and partners. “By design entails not only engineering excellence in our products, but it also includes community collaboration with customers, partners, and competitors; providing access to our technologies through licensing and translation tools; and by engaging in standards-setting activities,” Balakrishnan adds. The expected outcomes not only include better software, but also entire industry frameworks that drive greater efficiency among businesses and government entities.

Taking a versatile approach

Open Source has become an accepted technology. Evidence of this can be taken from the fact that most government tenders ask for Linux. Apart from this, most big software development houses have a Linux practice or at least people skilled in Linux and they take up projects on Linux. Majumdar adds, “Complete Open Source solution stacks are still used primarily by bigger software companies, smaller software houses in India still prefer to do a mix and match with proprietary technologies, which may be running on Linux.”

The involvement of major industry players is necessary to maintain the health of and sustain OSS projects. Linux, Eclipse, Mozilla, Globus and Apache all have active participation and support from some of the largest and most influential software companies in the industry. The Linux community counts HP, IBM, Sun and Oracle among its active contributors. Members of the Eclipse community include Borland, IBM, Oracle, Sybase, Montavista, Red Hat and many others. Mozilla has participation from Netscape, AOL, IBM, Red Hat and Sun. Globus is sponsored by IBM, Microsoft and Cisco. Apache lists Apple, IBM, Sun, CollabNet and Red Hat among its active contributors. These lists are, of course, small samples of the large number of companies that are involved in these initiatives. Their members also include contributors from Brown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and other academic institutions. 

Advani of Novell says, “We have some clear examples to show.  Look at any major IT software application out there and it will have a Linux version. Linux is now enterprise-ready, robust and secure.”

Going the enterprise way

With respect to where open source is moving, the most popular areas or trends where open source is gaining momentum are databases, applications servers and ERP solutions running on Linux. 

Open Source has done well when it comes to front-end application development, browsers and to a reasonable extent in the middle-tier and the database. Ramachandran adds, “When it comes to ERP/CRM there are not many options and there is a great demand for the same in the Open Source community. SugarCRM is an early experiment and it has not been fully explored and adopted.”

Sybase see an opportunity in unwiring enterprises through Open Source based solutions. Ramachandran says, “India’s mobile and wireless market has grown tremendously and there is great demand for delivering valuable information in a timely and cost-effective manner. Sybase solutions based on Open Source standards are ready to face those challenges and provide unique and customised solutions to enable enterprise level data to be unwired.”

Realising that Linux is an open, secure, and stable operating system, a large number of organisations including those in the government across the globe (including India) have adopted Linux as their platform of choice. Linux has matured and Indian organisations have taken note of this. In addition to the security, reliability and performance aspects, the use of commoditised components has lead to Linux adoption strengthening at a rapid pace. 

Ambastha of Oracle says, “In the enterprise segment, we have seen the government (state governments and agencies) deploy Linux based solutions. They are shifting away from proprietary platforms to open standards based systems.” 

All set to embark on the desktop

In India the adoption of the Linux on the desktop is at a nascent stage. Mass adoption on the desktop is still a dream. Pradhan says, “This is a key area of interest for Red Hat today, since we have visibly moved beyond the platform and are now making ourselves felt in applications developed around Linux.” 

The Linux operating system is already making inroads in Indian enterprises with huge deployments such as LIC with 2,000 desktops. 6,000 schools in Uttar Pradesh have adopted Linux in their curriculum.

Its TCO benefits coupled with the freedom that Linux gives to the user are going to drive its adoption in a developing market such as India.  

Recognising the advantages that a Linux Desktop has over proprietary operating systems, be it with regard to the cost of ownership or security issues, the future is evident. A major chunk of our potential users experience a mind block concerning the complexity of the user interface. “We are confident today, that a single hands on experience is all that is required to overcome this hurdle,” added Pradhan.  

Also, Red Hat’s research in collaboration with various partners, such as Intel and HP has ensured that device compatibility (with Red Hat’s desktop) is getting better.

Emphasising the ease of use factor, Majumdar of IBM says, “Linux desktop usage has become quite simple and even a first timer can start working on it without any formal training. However, certain free applications like OpenOffice can help reduce the cost of procuring software for any organisation in a big way. These are some of the drivers of the Linux desktop in the Indian market.” In addition to this he also highlighted that, educational institutes have started teaching and using the Linux OS. This will create a new generation that will feel as comfortable with using a Linux Desktop as they do with Windows today.

The lower cost of acquisition, lack of susceptibility to viruses and the availability of business applications such as Lotus Notes and OpenOffice makes a Linux Desktop that much more attractive.

Mission Critical

CIOs from various verticals are turning to Open Source as their natural choice. These are the individuals who have to assure the smooth running of an organisation’s technology. Take the case of Indiabulls that needs a reliable platform for countless, high value transactions or CESC which supplies power to vast expanses in West Bengal and forms the lifeline of millions.

The inroads that Open Source has made for running mission critical applications leads us to believe that the Indian technology fraternity has not only understood and accepted the benefits of OSS, it is looking for more innovation.  Pradhan says, “As we stand today, we have many cases clearly depicting that be it in data centres or for running mission critical applications, Open Source is a tough competitor to its proprietary counterpart.” 

Anil Bakht, Chairman and Managing Director, Eastern Software Systems says, “The very fact that OSS has been successful in running mission critical applications successfully with similar robustness and stability as experienced with other platforms, and that too at costs that are insignificant in comparison, has led to its wider acceptance. When it comes to evaluation in terms of price-performance, it wins hands down. Even SMBs and SMEs and individual users feel confident and reassured using open source software now, having seen its performance in the higher echelons of the IT environment. Success at the top is helping its percolation to the lower rungs as well, down to the desktop.” 

Ambastha says, “Many customers are using Oracle with open source technologies in mission-critical environments and are reaping the benefits of lower costs, easier manageability, higher availability, and reliability along with performance and scalability advantages.” BSNL is running its billing and complaint booking on Linux.

The way ahead

With Red Hat’s expanding its portfolio of enterprise offerings in the area of security, directory services and storage, and planning to increase its penetration, OSS seems to be more pervasive than ever. Pradhan says, “With our upcoming release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v5, which will incorporate features like virtualisation, we are seeing great interest in the product across market segments.”

Whichever way you look at it, on the server side, Linux is doing very well indeed.