OpenNMS bests OpenView and Tivoli while Ipswitch spreads the FUD

Having access to the source can be helpful. But when a product is fully open source and free, the only profit incentive is for a company to sell service, and that ends up being more expensive for customers. So who's going to offer free open source applications that cover the full range of IT needs? I don't think there's sufficient incentive for anyone to do that.

Take a look at IT organizations today. What percentage of the software they use is open source? My guess is quite low. All IT organizations will use a few open source tools, but the core applications they use are typically commercial. I think that collectively IT organizations make rational decisions, and that they're buying commercial software because in many cases there either isn't a suitable open source alternative or the open source path is more expensive.

Roger--thanks for the note but you can't possibly be serious.

Are you familiar with Apache or Linux or Snort? Apache has over 60% of the web server market. I think IT departments are finding it just fine.

You have absolutely no data to support your argument whereas we have 1000+ blog posts and customers supporting ours.

The thing that bums me out personally is that I have always liked Ipswitch products, but I can't support a company whose worldview is from the planet Mars.

Roger, I'm not sure what leads you to believe that a service-based model automagically makes TCO higher for OSS. If we look at private source companies, you're simply hiding your support costs in your licensing scheme anyway. Your argument has one enormous flaw - that OSS companies somehow need to have the same cost structure as private source companies.

*One thing* (as there are many) that OSS buys a company, is being able to leverage the community. In other words, more eyes looking over your code. More developers extending and inventing new widgets with your code. More developers evangelizing the wonders of your product. etc...

So what you spend in hiring coders, QA, and marketing/sales, is mitigated by the community.

In your situation, you're left on an island. An OSS competitor will do an end-run around you because their operating costs are significantly lower at every level. And let us not forget what happens when/if you go under... who maintains the code then?

Your second argument is complete rubbish, and I would advise you to take off your opensource blindfold.

For some reason, I suddenly hear the voice of Mr. T in the distance saying, "I pity the fool..."

Open source is not only a reality, it's a better option for both vendor and customer. Customers want to trust their software decisions, and that is hard to do when discovery and due diligence is clouded by the smoke and mirrors of smarmy sales people and pretty powerpoint. Customers want to kick the tires, they want to take it for a test drive, and they want to do it themselves. Old school closed source vendors can't stand this process, as it drags out the sales cycle, increases the cost of sale, and means they are going to have to work for that sale. Good open source products with strong are designed for the customers to realize value on their own, and support each other in the process - including the case for the vendor to do product development that echos what the market wants. This means open source vendors realize dramatic cost savings for support, sales and more effective product development. These cost savings are passed directly on to the customer.

Also, because products are designed to be installed and operated by the people that need them - implementation costs plummet. Let me illuminate you with two examples. A favorite story around the Hyperic office is that two years ago, one of our employees was doing product management for an old school, closed source vendor. As good product managers do, they go out and talk and watch their customers build and use their product implementations. In this case it was a large telco in Europe. In this process, she witnessed an entire floor of 120 Accenture consultants working on a project. It wasn't directly working on her software, it was working on HP OpenView - to manage it. 120 Accenture consultants had been there 6 months and they still weren't done! I don't know what the software cost was, but the old rule of 3x for implementation services had to be blown away. Fast forward to last week, and we had a customer who had decided based on community reputation to try our product. They were looking at doing a system replacement with our new 3.0 product. The administrator asked if he could come into our office ask specific questions about phasing the old product out. Because he was around the corner, we did this in person. After 1 hour of a barrage of questions, his response was, "I definitely made this out to be more complex then actually is. I guess I've just been used to this stuff being hard to implement. This is going to be cool."

So, let's go back to Roger's logic about being incented to cost more in service. While I didn't see the bill myself, with the reputation of HP and 120 tier one consultants for 6+ months, I think its safe to say the cost was 7 figures, and probably 8. If Hyperic did anything like that, we'd be out of business. We'd need a legion of sales and marketing pros to shove the cost down customer's throats. Instead, we have a relatively small team of sales and marketing (think single digits), and customers flocking to us. They've implemented pilots themselves, without our involvement or any expensive consultants, and now want to pay for indemnity and support. And by pay, they are only paying a few hundred dollars per server. Nothing like that poor telco.

As for open source adoption, the adoption numbers for USA and Europe are around 80%. That means 80% of all businesses have open source somewhere in their infrastructure. This article should illustrate that point nicely. http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/01/open_source_usa.html. I recently heard that the European Union has a policy that all open source options have to be exhausted before they will even look at proprietary. For anyone still comfy in their old world software bubble, I suggest you wake up. Most vendors with a clue are going open source. Just check out this research from the 451 Group: http://the451.com/caos/caos_detail.php?icid=312.

And don't even THINK about that other lazy mindset that open source is 80% of the functionality for 20% of the cost. I can't think of better proof that Open Source is the hotbed of innovation then to congratulate my peers at OpenNMS for kicking some old school, arrogant, sluggish and ineffective, proprietary software a$$. Kudos to you my friends for having the passion and innovation to push the market farther and better serve your customers and community.

Hi,

Not a very valid comparison as there are many products out there that do a far better job the HP OpenView or OpenNMS or Tivoli.

If you are an OSS type supporter in terms of your business model it would make finacial sense to use OpenNMS but in terms of best of breed this OSS product does not come close. Some might argue that using OSS software will cost you more as there are very few people who know how to use it and I mean use it, not some Linux script kiddy but someone with enterprise management expreience. These days its not about implementation its about intergration and the comparison should be about how nice does it play with the rest of my environment.

I dont see EMC SMARTS in the comparison list.

I am all for OSS software as long as it is not choosen as the cheapest option but rather as the best of breed option. As for NMS commercial software, I use it day in and day out and would like to see a more open model in terms of functionality and developement. Take a leaf out of SUN book, Open Solaris has proven to be a good business model for a commercial company and the benifits will be seen for years to come.

>> But when a product is fully open source and free, the only profit incentive is for a company to sell service, and that ends up being more expensive for customers.

What are you talking about? Give me a base product for free any day of the week. I'll pay for the ad-ons that I want. Instead are you suggesting it is better to pay for the base and then have no money left over to get the add-ons?

FLOSS is to closed source software as science in the 21st century is to "science" of the dark ages. Global sharing and building off ideas that prove themselves is more efficient than closed proprietary science where everyone's secret potion is sold as an elixir.

Oh, and the profit incentive is so missing from open source development that the FLOSS developers are only now figuring out how to code up a tic-tac-toe game... not!

Closed source is anti-consumer. Talk all the market theory you want that says open source is unworkable, and I'll show you a very broken market theory.