Today the cost of IT infrastructure is not a bottle neck for a business any more because the internet and the Open source movement has become Low Cost and many a time, free...

Here we have a panel with individuals who are involved in implementation of software, people who are involved in the open source movement and web technologies which make collaborations possible which benefits everyone.

Subramaniam Satyamoorthy Director of Operations & Services, Red Hat (JBoss)

With about 18 years of technology and solution experience, Satyamoorthy is one of the key Open Source experts in APAC. Satya's  career started with Unisys in India and was one of the first Java geeks to run the Java and Internet tide from 1994/95. Presently he is the Principal evangelist for JBoss in APAC. At Nielsen Media Research, he was instrumental in saving of $Millions of Dollars on Server licenses only by encouraging the use of Open source software. He is a prolific, informed and entertaining speaker who can bring technology close to the business community.

Satyamoorthy's opening remarks:

I want to use a message from the Former President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam - "The most unfortunate thing is that India still seems to believe in proprietary solutions," he said. "Further spread of IT,  which is influencing the daily life of individuals, would have a  devastating effect on the lives of society due to any small shift in the business practice involving these proprietary solutions. It is precisely for these reasons open-source software needs to be built, which would be cost-effective for the entire society. In India, open-source code  software will have to come and stay in a big way for the benefit of our billion people." The unfortunate thing is that we are still using proprietary software.

One of the big Software Companies is trying to acquire another company, and has given an ultimatum. If I was a client of the company being acquired, I don't know what the fate of my software is going to be. This is a big problem with Proprietary software.  If we are dependent on proprietary software, a small shift in ownership etc. will change our complete business practice. With Open Source software, the source code is with the customer, if at a later point in time, the company ceases to exist, there is no problem, and you can support the software yourself. You are not stuck to a particular vendor.  It is important to understand this Freedom that  Open source software provides.

One big myth about  Open source is "Who is going to support me (if I use Open source)?", There are more than 200,000 repository of projects in SourceForge, and a lot of these are supported by a large community of users. Support is easily available from this large community and service providers, and if you are not happy with one service provider you could easily shift to another. So Open source software is a way to give the freedom back to us, to the community and to the customer. 

Kiran Datar  Managing Director  WebEx Communications India Pvt. Ltd.

Kiran Datar has over 12 years of experience in various high technology and finance positions. He co-introduced the concept of Conferencing Services in India and has a wealth of experience in the emerging Indian telecom scenario. Kiran has also worked as a Strategist (International Economics and Foreign Exchange) at the Treasury Department of ABN AMRO, Chicago and at the Emerging Markets Department of Credit Suisse First Boston, in fixed income & equity fields with focus on analyzing companies in the telecom space.

Kiran's Opening remarks

Low cost software does not mean necessarily mean free software, it means being able to optimize the cost paid to the software during its lifecycle, optimize productively, use it effectively in the enterprise.

A revolution is happening on Web 2.0 technologies, it is changing the way software is deployed and used, a lot of people who are not part of the early software revolution, people who don't have enterprise capability or million dollar budgets are today able to participate because of the web. Look at the consumer side of it, today Google apps is enabling everybody to deflate monopolies, creating new markets, and is enabling everybody to have productivity software, which are not restricted to a few large enterprises.

We ourselves have participated in the software as a service (SAS) which is a new domain, it really is using the new web architecture, to deliver software in useful small chunks which makes it cost effective and low cost, where small businesses can take advantage. It reduces the large investments in the beginning and stretches the cost of ownership over a long period of time, it is more like EMI for software.

Sharath Raghavan - Tryst Networks

Born and brought up in Bangalore, did his schooling at Frank Anthony Public School Bangalore. Currently he is running Tryst Networks a company, which specializes in outsourced IT Support services, with an emphasis on implementing open source solutions and integration of Open source with Proprietary products. Tryst networks objective is to provide efficient and cost effective IT support to Small and medium business.

Sharath's Opening Remarks

Couple of years ago, open source or low cost software was always synonymous with Linux. Putting it into the system, installing it, and running it required patience. Integrating it with other PCs and software wasn't fun at all. It was more like interacting with a dinosaur who had a tooth ache. Only geeks who could speak Jawa or C++, better than Tamil or Kannada could use it. However things have changed Open source software is better documented today than proprietary software. The world has changed; Today there is a choice of open source software for absolutely anything. Today nobody wants to pay for the features that may or may not be used.

Q & A

What is the fundamental point that makes open source reliable?

Satya : Why do you lock your homes? It is to keep away intruders, who are trying to prove a point against you. It is the basic instinct of human beings to prove I'm one step ahead of you. In software, it is to prove that your code is bad and I can write better code than you. Open source gives you the freedom to improve it, augment it and put my name on it, to let the whole world know I did it. There is no incentive to break it. How may of you have heard of Viruses or Trojans on Open source Linux! I rest my case...

How can a small business benefit from Open source?

Satya: Let's say you have One Lakh Rupees to start your business with, you need to build your infrastructure and you need to buy your software licenses. You will spend about 75 thousand to buy the various licenses and you have 25 thousand to start your business. In the open source alternative, you have 1 lakh to start you business straight away.

Limitation for proprietary software?

Satya: Most proprietary software is becoming open source now. So far Jboss has had 12 million downloads and if even 1% of them have seen the source code, we have 120,000 people who have looked at it. It is unthinkable for code in proprietary software to be seen and checked by so many people.

Microsoft uses their heft and might to influence other people... For e.g. SAP has certain predilection towards operating systems, this is because Microsoft uses their corporate might to influence other friendly corporations to use their platform.

We do believe in using the Web as the platform, we provide applications on the web, business context apps, which allow people to do a number of things. We allow people to collaborate, enable people to meet on the web, exchange ideas create new paradigms.

We have created packages for marketing on the web, supporting on the web, it does not matter which software you are using, platform, whether it is Microsoft or open source.

Customers have a misconception about open source; they feel the Software is free, so to customise it why should some one charge for it.

Suggest your clients to read the GPL provided with the software - General public license. Open source is free as in freedom, it gives a right to use it, and it does not provide you ownership of it. You can not modify the software and claim proprietorship rights for it. Any violation of it is punishable.

The reason for the GPL is that  we don't want a monopoly to take the code and make a business out of it. Indemnification facility is provided by companies like Red Hat. If you buy subscription from them, they will make sure you will not be penalised, they will bear the cost of changing the code.

As a Software Service Provider, giving solutions on Open Source, How does one charge a customer, after all he will say the software is free?

Satya:- Its like a buffet, you have all the different items available, if you want to take rice, sambar and eat it, you are welcome, if you want me to serve it, then you pay for it. You pay for the service.

Currently there are no Trojans and viruses, will we have a situation if open source overtakes licensed software, that these problems will happen here as well?

Satya: The way open source software is built, the code is in the open for everybody to see, there are both kinds of people, those why try to add value to it and those who try to break it.

Sharath: The way it is built is much more secure, isolated from each other, if one file gets corrupted not all files will get affected. If you go around giving the root password to every body, you are bound to get into trouble.

Balaji: When you buy the proprietary software you look at the stability and credibility of the vendor, when you use open source, look at the strength of the community, how large is the community which is supporting it, how fast do they respond to a query is etc. The bigger the community using the software the more likely that it will be supported well.

Even the best products need to be marketed, so who is going to market open source?

Satya:- Nobody markets open source really. It is the responsibility of the people who are making money out of it, everybody who is going to touch open source, use it and distribute it to develop their own solutions using open source.

Balaji: Standards are evolving, today a document from Microsoft can be viewed on open office, save it as an open format or if I know the users platform I will save it in that format and send it.

How do I convince my customer that Open Source is equally robust and secure?

Satya: There are 2 ways to do it.

Business buyer - will worry about cost and TCO and how quickly he can put things to use, duration of how long it takes to use the solution. Typically his concern will be ‘Am I going to wait for one month, one year etc. to have my system to include say ‘VAT'; he is actually not concerned about the technology, only if it will deliver.

Technology Buyer: They love to see stuff, like when you go to a restaurant, where the food is displayed, you know the quality of the food / ingredient. Technology user would like to know what makes the product, Security aspects and accessibility of data.

Product could be of low cost, but the question is of confidence here...?

Kiran: Cost is just one aspect; function of the product needs to be met. As a buyer security and accessibility of data is what matters. 

Software industry is going through a transition from proprietary systems to more open systems. Open Standards, e.g. is Telecom, you can call from any network to any network. Interoperability is high. Software can be bought from the Web, if it is robust, confidence will come in. Ideally  software should become as commonly available and easy to use as a utility, like electricity or water.

How do you convince the Finance head about the Paying for Service say to JBoss?

Satya:- For us providing services by supporting open source software. Every year is election year, if I don't give you the service for which you paid, you don't have to come back to me, and you can just go away to another service provider, after all the software is open source. So because of this we have to be very good at our service delivery. That is what competition does to the market place. For instance in the Cellular industry 10 years ago a cell phone call used to cost Rs.25 Per minute, now it is Rs.1. With open source one cannot have a monopolistic position, the customer has choice, the brings down cost as well as increases service levels.

Web Ex - Web 2.O could you tell us more?

Kiran: The entire web runs on the open source. Web is also becoming a platform, delivers software in smaller digestible amounts in terms of capabilities.

When you buy Office suite, many people only use only small parts of it, some one might use only excel, and Power point and other components are ignored yet one needs to buy all this software. With SAS (Software as a Service) you need to only pay for what you use, and not pay for what is not required.

We look at collaboration, Small and Medium businesses need the ecosystem, they are dependent on service providers to make their business run, collaboration is at the heart of it, they can create a seamless solution for the customer, using technologies which are available or emerging.  Intelligence ultimately seeps into the network...

These are extracts from Panel Discussion organized by Businessgyan and Tasmac on the topic ‘Low Cost Software'. To know about the schedule of  such Panel Discussions do log on to www.businessgyan.com 

Compiled by Ms. Mangal D Karnad for Businessgyan

Issue BG80 Nov07

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