Posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Network World
Open source software is critical to the growth of both software-as-a-service and cloud computing, and cloud-based computing in turn is making it easier for open source vendors to lower costs, the analyst firm Saugatuck says in a new research note.
SaaS providers are flocking to open source for the same reasons as enterprise IT shops — acquisition and licensing costs that are 80% lower than comparable proprietary offerings. Open source vendors also are gaining strength from cloud computing models, such as Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, which make processing, storage and other IT services available over the Web on a pay-per-use basis. (Compare storage products.)
“Saugatuck sees the development and growth of open source and SaaS for enterprise infrastructure and business software as inextricably intertwined,” analyst Bruce Guptill writes.
Enterprises routinely use open source, even when they’re not aware of it. By 2011, at least 80% of commercial software will contain significant amounts of open source code, the analyst firm Gartner reported last September. Security risks related to open source software are a big concern, according to a study released just this month by Fortify Software, which says open source developers often fail to adhere to minimal best security practices.
