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Unisys Predicts CIOs in 2008 Will Expand Use of Open Source Solutions to Modernize IT EnvironmentsOnce the domain of developers, open source will increasingly become part of integrated enterprise solutions
BLUE BELL, Pa., January 15, 2008 – In 2008, IT executives in large enterprises will weave open source solutions more closely into the fabric of their core IT infrastructure, from procurement processes through deployment of next-generation applications, says Anthony Gold, vice president and general manager, Open Source Business, Unisys.
As solutions include more and more open source content, from middleware to business applications, open source will become key in helping management respond to increasing pressure to align IT with business goals while spending less money and leveraging existing assets more effectively.
Looking ahead at 2008, Gold predicts that:
“IT executives will see more clearly that open source solutions now routinely provide security, high availability, robustness, scalability, and other enterprise-quality features. This realization will cause them to place open source solutions in the front rank of those solutions routinely considered for mission-critical tasks,” Gold says.
2. Enterprises will extend – and even modify – their governance policies to include management of open source resources.
In fact, according to Gold, businesses are equally likely to adapt their existing governance policies to fit the open source deployment model. Open source projects often provide new software releases much more frequently than slower moving commercial software providers. Enterprise evaluation and production policies will need to adapt to this change.
Gold says, “Extending proven governance policies to new-generation resources will further convince management that open source solutions are as controllable as established proprietary solutions and as capable of providing measurable business value. And by modifying policies to integrate open source resources more quickly, they can reap the operational and economic benefits in more efficiently managed ways.”
3. Business services currently offered by legacy applications will be retooled into flexible new “composite applications” based on open architectures, such as SOA, and open standards.
Most organizations are now adopting this approach guided by service oriented architecture (SOA). In doing so they leverage open standards, such as those evolving around Web services and orchestration, to enable delivery of those services.
Gold says that, because open source solutions have an exceptionally broad range – from components that solve a very specific integration or processing problem to environmental software such as operating systems and middleware – they are positioned to be a major part of this integrated ”toolkit” approach in ways that commercial software cannot. Through emphasis on interoperability enabled by standards, open source is becoming a larger and larger part of the IT fabric enabling composite applications which align more closely with business requirements and which are able to react quickly to business change.
“In 2008, enterprise IT management will increasingly move to restructure existing assets to support a more agile application model that delivers business services created through use of components,” says Gold. “Those components will be provided by new development, service-enabling legacy applications, or commercial off-the-shelf applications, which are increasingly being restructured to support this model. All these efforts are directly enabled though adoption of open standards, open architectures, and open source.”
4. Businesses will increase the speed with which they leverage open source in enterprise applications as well as in operational and business management functions.
Increasingly popular tools for business and IT monitoring – such as JasperSoft and Pentaho for dashboard reporting in business intelligence (BI) applications and GroundWork, Hyperic and Zenoss for operations control – will penetrate even further into corporate IT infrastructures. So will business solutions such as Alfresco for enterprise content management (ECM), Concursive Concourse for customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, Compiere and Openbravo for enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, and a host of new collaboration technologies based on web 2.0 capabilities.
Gold points out that market dynamics and government requirements are major factors in this evolution. Many rapidly developing areas, such as China and other parts of the Asia Pacific region, have first-generation IT infrastructures in which proprietary applications have not been been widely deployed. Consequently, they are very receptive to open source solutions as a first choice. In Europe, state and local governments and even the European Union are driving use of open solutions for ECM in order to facilitate the sharing of increasingly large amounts of information among governments with a common need for access.
“Open source will continue to grow as an enabling force for business because of its ‘perfect storm’ of key attributes: a community-driven requirements model; uniquely targeted deployment model; adherence to, and capability to drive, new standards; and low cost of entry. In 2008, users’ greater appreciation of those qualities will bring open source closer to becoming competitive table-stakes for enterprises.” About Unisys Unisys is a worldwide information technology services and solutions company. We provide consulting, systems integration, outsourcing and infrastructure services, combined with powerful enterprise server technology. We specialize in helping clients use information to create efficient, secure business operations that allow them to achieve their business goals. Our consultants and industry experts work with clients to understand their business challenges and create greater visibility into critical linkages throughout their operations. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.
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