7 Reasons To Adopt Open Source Technology In 2020
The debate whether the companies should adopt the Open Source or Proprietary products continues. For many businesses, it may not be easy to reach the right “product“ decision, even though it could be making a huge difference in their company’s growth.
Let’s begin with understanding the basic difference between Open Source & Proprietary Technology
Introduction to Open Source & Proprietary
Open Source products are “open stack” solutions leveraging the standard-based approach, for example, VoIP for the transmission of multimedia communications.
Proprietary products are a “closed” system that is solely designed and developed by specific manufacturers with their branding.
Research Speaks
According to PC World, 8 out of 10 companies are choosing Open Source products over Proprietary products today due to quality.
Let’s understand why Open Source is having a leading edge on Proprietary?
Reasons to adopt Open Source
1. Cost
Cost starved startups, small and medium businesses and it is one of the major reasons that drive organizations to the decision of adopting Open Source products instead of proprietary products. Companies are inclining towards open source due to freedom of running the products with any company software & products and the biggest advantage out of it is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is reduced.
Licensing cost is another major reason why companies shy away from Proprietary products. Be informed that, most of the Open Source software and products are free to download but there can be optimization & configuring costs involved.
Compared to proprietary, open-source products don’t lock you into long term service contracts that help companies to save cost on the product part.
2. Security
Gartner reports say that enterprises in India alone are forced to spend on the information security front. Estimated spending on information security will be US $2 billion in 2020.
Increased awareness about data security, risk assessments and the realization of the fact that security is one of the major driving forces for enterprise growth are boosting enterprise security globally.
Is Open Source more secure than Proprietary Products?
This is the obvious question popping up in everybody’s minds and opinions vary from person to person.
There is a myth revolving around the fact that the Proprietary products are more secure as compared to the Open Source products based on the reason that the Proprietary products get a commercial license. But this is untrue since the commercial license does not ensure the security thus making the point redundant.
Because the code is openly visible to everyone, people often debate this would make the code more vulnerable to be attacked by hackers, but openness allows collaborations and every time thousands of techies are working on the system to make it more secure and better.
For example, Google Open-Sourced its Artificial Intelligence Engine, Tensorflow. This decision was proved to be right when 1300 developers outside of Google worked on it to make it a standard Artificial Intelligence Engine.
There is another myth associated with the Proprietary products which go around saying that these are not prone to attacks.
But, this is not true.
Did you know about Melissa Virus and the ‘I Love You’ worm? Melissa was a virus attack on mail-in 1999 which sent users the mail with the subject line I LOVE YOU. It was a well-known virus that attacked the MS Word ‘97 & the MS Word 2000 Operating systems in the year 2000.
Another example that ensures security in Open Source comes from a recent incident wherein many bugs were detected in the Android Kernel. This discovery was possible because the Kernel code is open to public view.
Open Source products strengthen themselves from the larger community of product engineers who are contributing continuously towards developing the project and increasing the features.
3. Custom Applications
Customization is the deal-breaker in all the segments and it is paramount when comes to the telephony industry. Open Source wins here over Proprietary big time.
Customization is easy with Open Source technology and products are easily customizable according to the requirements.
Companies like *astTECS who are working on Open Source technology are the leaders when it comes down to customization of communication products like IP PBX, GSM Gateway, PRI Gateways, etc.
4. Interoperability
Open Source gives freedom of integrating products with external applications. This helps the companies to expand their products and scope of service. Open Source products can be easily integrated with other brand products and CRM, ERP & other social media channels.
Recently, *astTECS was able to integrate its call center products with all top CRM and social media platforms like WhatsApp because of the reason that all the *astTECS products are developed on popular Open Source platform Asterisk.
5. No vendor lock-in
Have you ever pondered about how the vendor lock-in can affect your business?
Proprietary software bonds the users to use only the products developed on that particular code. For example, If you buy software of Cisco, then VoIP Phones should be of the same company, only then the interoperability would be possible between the products.
When a user turns towards Open Source, they free themselves from the linkage of Proprietary software products, their prices & priorities. Open Source gives full authority to users to customize & interoperate the products with other brand’s products.
*astTECS products give liberty to users to use their products with other products. Since all astTECS products are asterisk based, they permit users to get away from the vendor lock-in that can bother users of proprietary packages.
6. Updated Technology
Don’t take the Open Source platforms to be just a piece of code, these platforms are always updated to be embraced by the latest technologies. Not even a single project on an Open Source platform entails an outdated working philosophy.
It isn’t the fact but proof of how modern enterprises are innovating themselves by adopting Open Source products.
Experts also believe that the future will be more collaborative rather than closed towards the technological ground as a whole.
7. Service
This is an unending debate between the Open Source & Proprietary products which have both critics & fans of theirs.
Another most talked argument against Open Source product solutions is that queries are responded via forums, which is time-consuming. While Proprietary product solutions are just a click or a phone call away, it makes Proprietary a clear favorite here.
But, *astTECS breaking this tale on a mission to become Redhat of telecom has introduced 24*7 support for its clients to provide them support round the clock.
Final Verdict
In the end, both Open Source & Proprietary products have their limitations and advantages. The right choice of software depends on the business needs of your organization.
In the past decade, the ICT world has seen significant growth in the adoption of Open Source technology, as more businesses could see the advantages of Open Source products over Proprietary counterparts.
Now, I would like to hear from you.
Which technology are you going to adopt for your business?
And, If you have doubts then please Contact Us
