What Is The Difference Between Open Source And Closed Source Software?
In today’s business world which uses IT for its optimal and non-stop functioning, software is something which any organization will not run without. Speedy business needs has made software an absolute requirement. This has given rise to numerous software solution providers or software developers. As their number increases, so is the competition between them. All these vendors are always thinking up new and innovative ideas to win amidst the market competition. One of these ideas has been to offer the customer opensource software so that if a customer’s preferences change they can make the necessary amendments by spending much less money than buying completely new software.
Does the supplying of open source software, give an indication about the future of all software vendors? Will all software vendors eventually have to open up their source code or go out of business? This essay disagrees with this thought and will examine few reasons for it. Those who still believe in supplying closed source software will always own a bigger share of the market as they have been doing it in the past.
In the recent past, some companies have searched for more economic software than to shell out a hefty amount to software biggies every time they thought of expanding their business limits. They stepped in, with open source software because modifying it to the extent needed required little extra expenditure.
As the volume of business rises so does the requirement of software capabilities by the companies. . many companies today resort to open source software but merely acquiring an open source doesn’t guarantee that whatever changes you make to the software will always work with finesse. There may be instances of irrecoverable data loss or reduced security. There will be no one to take guarantee to that effect. That’s why, industries where there is an urgent requirement of updating the software along with the transfer of their past crucial data, will always look for bigger companies doing this against insured terms. These insured terms are not possible even if you have a complete software development wing in your office. Developing software is a group effort, but modifying the software together with keeping the existing data intact, is a serious group effort. Nowadays, there are so many companies selling open source softwares but they are less preferred when the size of a company’s business expands.upwards in size of business. So the open source will of course be available in the market and remain in competition with the packed software but it will never be able to beat them. There is also a psychological reason behind this: as someone reaches close to the peak, his chances of falling increase too. The top of the peak is all surrounded by falls, so on reaching close to the peak no one would like take a cheap and risky step but would always go for a costly but assured step. For example a bank would never use open source software modified by its own organization. At the same time it is a fact which many of us don’t know that the operating system on the world’s most important server is an open source – Linux.
On one side are the defending champions — Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft and on the other are a ragtag bunch of coders and some more organized corporate ventures, all fighting to increase their market share in different ways. But to take down the Big Three using the power of open source is a big challenge.
This open source trend is rising not only in softwares but in other fields too. The rise of Open Source Licensing started in 2003; Microsoft’s share of all revenue generating server shipments in 2002 was 55% while Linux held only 23%. Also open source has not been that successful in personal computer desktop software so far. The market shares have not changed much. If one uses searches made on Google as an indicator, from June 2001 to June 2004, a steady 1% of all searches came from computers using Linux as the operating system.
Today’s top software masters – IBM, Microsoft and Oracle own three-fourths of the software market. At the same time, there is this rising trend of using open source softwares. This trend is certainly shooting up and will continue to go up. but certain parameters. As I mentioned before that as the security and sensitivity increases and time required to be given is less people will always land up at either at IBM, Microsoft or Oracle.
Thus, software developers who supply close end software will remain in business and their product will be preferred over open source software. However, open source software will still remain in tandem to meet the needs of some continually growing smaller businesses.Category: Softwares, Technology