By silicon.com, 18 August 2005 17:15
The fact that such a Linux pioneer as Central Scotland Police should rethink its strategy may lead some open source fans to reconsider their opinions.
The Scottish force reviewed its technology strategy and realised a standardised infrastructure was the key to increased integration with other criminal justice agencies. And, as a result, it's replacing much - though not all - of its open source infrastructure with Microsoft technologies.
Of course there is a whiff of 'man bites dog' about any story that involves companies replacing Linux with Microsoft, simply because there seems to be such a general shift towards open source, especially in the public sector.
But at the same time this case illustrates an important point.
Technology decisions are not made in isolation.
Few IT organisations have the luxury of being able to choose an all-Microsoft or an all-open source infrastructure. And even if they could, it's unlikely they would survive by doing business only with suppliers or customers that had the same simple set-up.
Co-existence and integration has to be the name of the game in IT. If you've installed a great technology that won't integrate with the rest of your - or your partner's - systems then you've wasted your money.
The history of tech is littered with the rusting hulks of companies that built great technology that just didn't fit in. Developers have to think broadly about not just what their applications or systems will do but how they will relate to the others around them.
This is likely to be one of the big challenges for open source, as at the moment Microsoft is the de facto standard for many corporate applications - especially when it comes to the desktop.
Open source can bring many benefits for its users. But if businesses that start using open source find it hard to do business as a result they will head back into the Microsoft fold.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. David
GNU/Linux is happy to co-exist with MS Windows. It does not appear that MS has been or is now too eager to co-exist with any other OS.
2. Bruce Badger
It's quite an irony for an open source, open standards environment to be replaced with a closed-source closed-specification envrionment ...
... and then to read an article suggesting that more interoperability is the way to go, and that responsibility for building interoperability is on the environment that is already open!
The right thing to do, IMO, is to aim for wider use of open standards. Then we can have some real merit based competition. Further, I think that public bodies, such as the police, should be required to adopt open standards (and note that this would still allow them to use closed-sourec software if it turned out to be the best solution).
3. Simon
"If you've installed a great technology that won't integrate with the rest of your - or your partner's - systems then you've wasted your money."
People should be asking why MS keep making it so hard - not that you have to look far for the answer. Quite simply, because MS have been allowed to get to a virtual monopoly in certain areas, with a certain level of foul play along the way, they are able to play a game of keep shifting the goalposts to make life difficult for anyone else.
So by the time competitor have figured out how the last MS anti-interoperability feature works, MS have already rolled out the next one.
And as for the outright lies they tell the regulators, well the sooner they get seen for what they are the better.
MS do NOT work to open standards, MS do NOT embrace open standards. They have a proven track record of 'adopting' an open standard (so they can use all the PR spin that goes with it), but then proprietising it so that nothing built to that open standard will actually interoperate.
4. Finn Gruwier Larsen
The point in this article is somewhat strange. The message seems to be that producers of open-source software are not doing enough to integrate their products with Microsoft's de facto standards. This is not true. An enourmous lot of effort is done to make open source products compatible with Microsoft standards. The problem is that many of these so-called 'standards' are extremely hard to be compatible with - partly because Microsoft refuses to disclose them. The only solution is that all software producers - both closed source and open source - should be compatible with open standards, which is already the case for the vast majority of open source products.
5. Richard Steven Hack
One of the more pointless articles I've read in the trade press for the last couple weeks, I must say.
While Windows is the dominant OS on the desktop, of course open source must co-exist.
Can you say, "DUH!"
I knew you could.
And when Linux and Open Source knock Windows off its dominant position, Windows will have to co-exist with Open Source for a few more years beyond that point until Microsoft goes out of business altogether.
Make no mistake - in the end, it will be either/or. Unless Bill Gates gets hit by a truck and somebody smarter than Ballmer takes over the reins at Microsoft, Microsoft is not going to change. And it's not going to accept co-existence with Open Source.
And that means Open Source is going to have to put Microsoft out of business.
There is no third alternative absent the conditions I mentioned above.
6. Shivaram Venkatesh
I think such comments reflect a total lack of knowledge on Microsoft technology and simply a notional tirade. Microsoft products have really revolutionised the way people work today and almost every user of a computer is comfortable with a Windows product.
Regarding the silly comment on standards, Microsoft products are purely standards based - XML, Web Services, XSL. How many dumb guys like this know that Windows is actually UNIX??? the POSIX sub system in Windows is fully compliant to the POSIX Standards which even a system like AIX is not.
People use a computer to make their lives easier and be more productive, I think that should be what drives a decision, not dumb views like these...