First this
article was published on the BBC yesterday, reporting that President Obama has tapped
Scott McNealy to advise on the Federal Government's technology strategy. Then on the same day Microsoft announces their unprecedented
layoffs, the first major layoffs in their 34 year history. All of this on the heels of
RedHat's quarterly earnings call reporting
growth, in spite of the economic downturn. Is 2009, and the next 4 years (well, lets say it, 8), the time that open source will become the clearly preferred way to run not only your business but the whole Federal Government?
A mandate by President Obama, and the person who will occupy his future
technology cabinet position, to use only open source is not feasible. What is feasible is a directive that would encourage the selection of an open source technology when it is viable and more cost-effective (which is increasingly the case). As the stimulus package details become clear, and with Obama's penchant for technology, we may see times get a lot tougher for the likes of Microsoft and other proprietary vendors.
A case in point.
Amazon does a great job of breaking down the costs of their back-end infrastructure. Their
Elastic Computing Cloud pricing structure contrasts the costs of operating Linux and Microsoft. One CPU hour of a Linux server runs you $0.10, while a Windows server runs you $0.125. There really is a 'Microsoft Tax'...
While the economic downturn is wreaking havoc, there are going to be immense opportunities in the coming years. I for one believe open source will be an even larger factor in rebuilding the technology led economy.
