Is ‘free’ actually free?
 Speaking on the open source vs. commercial software debate, Pallavi Kathuria, Director, Server, Microsoft, argues that there’s more to a book than just its cover
The software industry has dealt with numerous challenges over the years and continues to evolve. Amidst all this growth, the debate over open source vs. commercial software remains in the limelight. Prima facie, this seems like a free vs. expensive argument—but there’s always more to a book than just its cover.
More customers today understand the importance of taking a mature approach to using IT. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)—which includes the cost of procurement, end-user acceptance, and of course, the long-term business impact of factors like security—is a good metric to consider before taking a decision.
TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP
In today’s ‘Do more with less’ IT environment, TCO is an acid metric that enables customers to make informed IT investment decisions.
An India-specific Frost & Sullivan 2006 report found that:
- Hardware is the largest component of TCO of Indian enterprises. The cost of software is about 15 percent of the capital expense and 6.8 percent of the overall TCO
- Overall, Windows 2003 environment across enterprises has close to 16 percent lower TCO as compared with a Linux environment over a period of five years
- The TCO of Linux over a period of five years is greater than that of Windows across three workloads that account for nearly 80 percent of x86 servers—applications (22.4 percent), networking (11 percent) and e-mail (8.24 percent)
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A report by Gartner ‘Predicts 2009: The Evolving Open-Source Software Model’ says that through 2013, 50 percent of mainstream IT projects using OSS will not achieve cost savings over closed-source alternatives.
The report also says, “Do not expect to automatically save money with OSS or any technology without effective financial management.”
In its recent report ‘Best Practices for OSS Adoption, Forrester, 2009’ Forrester underscores the importance of doing a full, multi-year evaluation on TCO, going beyond a simple evaluation of the initial capital expenditure to look a number of factors. Further, the report notes: “Open source may be free (as in freedom), but it’s not really free (as in lunch).”
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A comprehensive TCO evaluation goes beyond the initial cost of purchasing hardware or software to include pre-implementation soft costs and post-implementation operation, support, maintenance, downtime and training costs over a five-year period.
For instance, the CAPEX for the Linux OS might be low but the OPEX could be significantly higher compared to a Windows OS. So the perception that FOSS equates ‘free’ is an erroneous one. Calculate the total cost over an average time period of five years, and you will find that free doesn’t continue being free.
An additional critical factor that no organization wishes to compromise on is security. Contrary to the claims made by OSS advocates, proprietary software has its core protected and therefore is less prone to attacks by hackers and even if a problem occurs, this can be easily solved since the core is protected. The open source code is audited by many eyes, making it easier for individuals to find weaknesses to exploit in open source, rather than in proprietary software.
‘MIXED SOURCE’: THE REALITY
Technology today has evolved a great deal. Customers have varied needs that cannot be met either by a single vendor nor addressed by using a single software. Therefore, it clearly amounts to assessing various aspects of cost and productivity. There is a need here for companies to collaborate with competitors too. Today, the industry acknowledges the fact that interoperability is vital for the end user to move seamlessly between different technology platforms.
Ultimately, it’s all about providing the customer with a choice. This is a reality that we cannot and should not escape.
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