Organizations continue to wrestle with the COTS vs. Open Source question and
continually look for guidance on how to select one vs. the other. Many
organizations make the frequent mistake of basing the decision on the capital
investment cost or up front investment with no thought to any other
criteria. While cost is an important factor, there are other areas that
organizations should consider as part of their selection process. These
include:
1. Technical
2. Cultural
3. Financial
Technical
The technical component to the decision is pretty straight forward with only
a few minor issues to worry about. This usually involves an evaluation or
trade-study to ensure that the proper feature/functionality exists to support
the current requirements, as well as the abil... (more)
The post from Anne Thomas Manes on the end of SOA has caused a bit of ruckus
in the IT world over the past week or so. Folks from eWeek and ebizq have
all blogged in response to this, as well as the numerous comments from
everybody in response to these postings and I figured I would join the fray.
For several reasons, businesses and organizations are being forced to do more
with less. Wi... (more)
For the past several years, US Government agencies have shown an increased
interest in open source software, and with the advent of the Obama
administration's call for transparency and openness several organizations
believe open source software is part of the answer. So what is the allure
of open source to the government? Is it the promise of reduced cost? Is it
access to the source cod... (more)
Several of our AgilePath customers continue to wrestle with the COTS vs. Open
Source question and continually ask for guidance on how to select one vs. the
other. More often than not, they tend to focus on the capital investment
metric (thinking Open Source is ‘free’) and neglect other key elements of
the decision. In helping customers evaluate which direction they should go,
we focus ... (more)
How Business views IT and SOA.
A great cartoon from Geek and Poke on how Business responds to IT and SOA.
... (more)