Open Source Software - The Business Benefits

Autonomy

• No vendor lock-in: OSS allows you to say goodbye to proprietary formats. You have the source code to your applications, and your data is stored using open standards. This means you are not tied to any particular vendor.
• Extended hardware and application lifetimes: no upgrades forced by vendors, allowing hardware and application lifetimes to be extended.
• Freedom to customise applications: don't shoehorn your process to fit off-the-shelf software; OSS can be freely modified to work the way you want it to.

Lower TCO

• Lower license fees: OSS has substantially lower, and in most cases no license fees associated.
• Depreciation: extend the length of depreciation for hardware and software assets.
• No externally forced change: spend your IT budget as you want, not on forced upgrade paths by software vendors.
• Reduced administration: OSS lends itself better to system integration as your data is stored using open standards. This means seemingly disparate systems can be glued together eliminating rekeying between systems, improving data quality by removing human errors.

White Paper - Open Source Intellectual Property Management

This discussion document is for business executives who want to understand the Intellectual Property implications of Open Source and Free Software. It moves on from the tired old debates of "does your software infringe?" and the once-sensational "save money by never paying for another software license" to looking at the legal benefits to your business.

With Open Source Software (OSS) comes new business freedoms: freedoms to create new kinds of relationships with your suppliers, customers and even underwriters.

Download the whitepaper here.