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‘IDC projects that open source will drive “vicious price competition” in the software industry, though it also adds that, “Price effects are a less important impact of open source adoption than the effect of open source on the entire life-cycle of software invention and innovation.”‘
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links for 2006-10-213 comments to links for 2006-10-21 |
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Copyright © 2010 Bob Sutor - All Rights Reserved |
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I think it’s really ‘public Internet’ that is driving it. ‘Software’ is splitting into ‘free’ (like Novell SuSE Linux) and ‘expensive’ (like IBM Lotus Notes). In both cases if you intend to rely on them for your business then they come with service and are priced to value (one hopes) as a ’solution’.
Whether the same split will hit Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office is yet to be determined. Or maybe Microsoft’s business will head towards XBox and ‘Age of Empires’, with video games and Hollywood DVDs being the new millennium’s ‘Cheap Software’.
What happens in schools ? Which side of the split do they fall, and how do they get there ?
Chris-
Schools are so cost-sensitive, like regional, state & municipal governments. Private schools & universities not “research”-funded by Microsoft will be all Mac. (The Hungarian Pastry Shop by Columbia is 95% Macs…all day & Sunday.) Public schools will revert to a Mean consisting of Linux, LTSP, OpenOffice & Firefox. Period! (My2pence.)
Well, my kids’ schools are Microsoft through-and-through; so proud of their Windows XP boxes, teaching the kids how to use Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Paint, Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft PowerPoint.
They also have ‘acceptable usage’ policies that software shall not come in from home, and students shall not download software from the Internet.
That makes it hard for them to get the IBM Free Software (such as IBM Websphere Community Edition, IBM DataExplorer http://www.opendx.org/ , OpenAFS http://www.openafs.org/ , IBM Harmony Java (on the Apache web site), and so on; never mind the ‘other people’s free software that exists in steadily increasing abundance. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, and all of it could do with ‘lab technician’ attention to bring things to the state where the ’science teacher’ can use it to teach the class.
So I think you’re suggesting a disruptive transition is on the cards; like water going over the Niagara Falls, there is a flow upstream, and a flow downstream, but in between things are a bit rough.
Should we precipitate it ? Should we hold it off ? Should we accept it as inevitable and make a ‘well-padded barrel’ to survive the transition region, as the differing commercial ventures who do better in the different regimes squabble over who gets the money ?
Once upon a time, it was all ‘typewriters’ and ‘typewriter ribbons’. Nowadays, no-one in the whole world makes typewriters and typewriter ribbons.
But we’re still in business.