Use of "Open Source" to surge this year

The use of “Open Source” software will surge this year as companies tightens belts to survive the looming global financial crisis.

In an outlook report released by XMG, a leading global ICT (Information Communication Technology) research and advisory firm focused on the Asia Pacific region, it said that Open Source software will continue to expand in several Asia Pacific enterprises and continue to find its way into corporate developer use and become the underlying foundation of commercial software.

With the global economy in recession, XMG believes that the use of open source software will become a standard part of several enterprises in Asia Pacific (particularly utilizing Java as its enterprise architecture, SAAS).

Open source versions of standard application server software will continue to gain credibility and market share as viable alternative to traditional vendor offerings like Microsoft, in enterprise implementations.

XMG expects this trend to continue well into 2010 and organizations must establish specific policies to control how open source is utilized.

The centerpiece heading into 2009 is the global financial crisis sweeping the world. Although troubled economic times are in store for the global economy in 2009, XMG analysts firmly believe that enterprise use of IT and offshoring are still the catalysts in driving business efficiency and cost savings for the region.

Furthermore, IT industry economics will force alignment with the principle of complexity reduction and economizing IT budgets. As identified by the survey completed at the end of 2008, good guidance and wise investment tops the list of decision makers for 2009.

Open Source is a software or computer program which source codes are made available to the general public. It does not have licensing restrictions that limit its use, modifications, or redistribution.

One of the few advantages of the Open Source software is it encourages software re-use. In the open source community, no code is wasted.

Open Source development can also build on the entire body of work already released under a suitable open source license.

Last year, Cebu held the first Open Source Summit to fully introduce the benefits of Open Source technology to companies, as well as to strengthen the positioning of Cebu as an ICT hub in the Philippines.

For his part, Open Source advocate Winston Damarillo, chairman of the Global Gateway Venture Capital, he said that Cebu's decision to strongly embrace the Open Source technology brings credibility to Cebu, as "advance thinker" in IT, and will pave the way to join the high-tech countries like Brazil, China, Japan, and Hong Kong.

Damarillo, who also owns different software development and solutions company both in the Philippines, and abroad, the Exist Global, and Morph Laboratory, among others, said there is a need for the Philippines to fully embrace the Open Source technology, as the country's market is very "cost sensitive".

Damarillo added that Cebu can easily strengthen its credibility as IT Center, if there is a growing number of Open Source literate engineers and experts.— Ehda M. Dagooc