Open Source TCO: Total Cost of Ownership and the Fermat’s Theorem
Gartner’s 2009 predictions have been widely commented over these days, leaving space and opportunities to rediscuss the open source mantra “we cost less”.
Migrate to open source seems the cheapest solution, at least on an individual basis, but enterprise migrations are not an easy game to play, and TCO doesn’t look like the ultimate answer.
Any similarity between the Fermat’s theorem and the cost benefits of open source?
Simon Phipps apparently denies that the cost benefit is the main attraction, Savio Rodrigues echoes mentioning a third party TCO study comparing open vs proprietary solutions. The report found that the cost of administering and managing the open source product outweighed the upfront license cost savings.
Are they wrong?
“Look at the numbers!” by David Wheeler or some Gartner recommendations go, at some extent, in the opposite direction, but again TCO calculations are prone to be defective and controversial even.
Open Source Self-Sufficiency as well as the ability (or inability) of global solution providers to offer multi-year contracts to “migrate, innovate and operate” have to be carefully considered.
Systems integrators have the financial strength and pricing methodologies to propose fixed price multi-year contracts for migration and operations to their customers and in many cases to fund innovation as well. These offerings will cover a spectrum — from migration to a fully managed service, to migrations followed by on-premise support and maintenance services.
Moving from artisanship to industrial can be done, must be done. A broad spectrum of open source opportunities will be lost otherwise. Open Source companies have to bring solution providers and big system integrators in the equation, open source ecosystems are mandatory.
People, Processes and Products correlate to productivity in sophisticated systems, keeping it in mind we might end proving that open source products have a better ROI, though.
It took more than three centuries to proof that the equation an +Â bn =Â cn has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c if n is greater than 2.
Will it take less proving that open source is cheaper?
Roberto Galoppini are discussing.
Roy Schestowitz 7:44 pm on January 8, 2009 Permalink
Why do people /still/ cite Gartner. They are corruptible. E-mails from antitrust show them negotiating with clients what they’ll write.
Roberto Galoppini 3:17 pm on January 9, 2009 Permalink
Ciao Roy,
Gartner talks to CIOs, and they listen to Gartner, that is why everybody cites Gartner. This is fair enough as far as it goes, and I think that they deserve our attention for this.
451 CAOS Theory » 451 CAOS Links 2009.01.09 4:22 pm on January 9, 2009 Permalink
[…] Open Source TCO: Total Cost of Ownership and the Fermat’s Theorem Roberto Galoppini […]
Roy Schestowitz 9:57 pm on January 11, 2009 Permalink
Roberto,
I have some antitrust docs that I need to process and publish. They show Gartner and IDC negotiating with Microsoft what they’ll produce. There are prior examples of this that I published. I’m not vengeful; I’m a realist. CIOs will hopefully become more open minded because they are being sold mindshare.
Roberto Galoppini 10:21 am on January 12, 2009 Permalink
Roy,
I am not saying you are vengeful, just mentioning that some analysts are more equal than others and therefore makes sense to comment them.
About being biased or not, I think that it is impossible to make general assumptions when we talk about big analyst firms.
Roy Schestowitz 8:47 pm on January 12, 2009 Permalink
Yes, size leads to generalisation.
The Hidden Cost of Free | The Open Minded Enterprise 4:13 pm on March 4, 2010 Permalink
[…] about the Total Ownership Costs is more productive – in which case, you need proof. Talking about an ROI is pretty […]