Businesses are becoming more confident about deploying open-source technology within the enterprise, instead of relegating it to the fringes or for experimental projects, according to a recent survey.
A significant majority of surveyed respondents, or 95 percent, said their organizations are using open-source technology to avoid vendor lock-in, according to the Future of Open Source Survey released May 16. In previous years, the chief reason driving open-source adoption was lowered software costs.
“Multiple factors are driving the increased adoption of open-source software, including freedom from vendor lock-in, greater flexibility and lower cost,” said Matt Aslett, senior analyst of enterprise software at The 451 Group.
While lower software costs are still important, ranking second on the list, organizations are more interested in open source to avoid vendor lock-in from traditional software vendors as well as from proprietary cloud providers. Public sector adoption and increased experience using open-source software are also listed as drivers for adoption.
Software as a service, cloud computing, big data and mobile will contribute most to the growth in open source, the authors wrote. The researchers found there were more than 470 open-source cloud computing projects and 3,800 open-source mobile projects in 2010, giving enterprises plenty of choice in those areas.
For more, read the eWEEK article: Open-Source Software Going Mainstream in Enterprises: Survey