2006: The Year Of Open Source

The report, essentially its technology sector trend predictions for the year, contains some thought-provoking tidbits, which I discussed with a couple of its executives a week or so ago.

One of them, "Open Source Moves Toward Center Stage," already is being borne out, if you consider Oracle's Valentine's Day acquisition of Sleepycat.

Looking at open source from the VAR's or integrator's point of view, the Deloitte executives suggest - not so surprisingly - that the rise of open source could sharply reduce R&D costs, giving specialists the opportunity to really dive into development of their niche capabilities and not the more established features.

But solution providers that are heavily dependent on licensing revenue could find themselves in for a shock, according to Paul Beltis, a principal for Deloitte Consulting who focuses on technology integration services. No, open source doesn't equal free. This trend isn't so much because software revenue will dry up, but it will redistribute into things like maintenance and developer tool kits. "They really need to consider getting into the maintenance end, moreso than in the past," Beltis says.

Beltis and crew believe that open source's impact this year will extend beyond areas such as server management into long-established categories including CRM, ERP and enterprise software infrastructure and, yes, office productivity software.

From the executive summary of its report: "In 2006, open source's growing adoption will likely cause many in the industry to take a different view towards the value of intellectual property, and how to best leverage it. Many established software players may well choose to provide previously proprietary intellectual property to open source communities, recognizing the power of the open source model as a distribution mechanism; and one which need not threaten the value of intellectual assets. As a result, it will likely become increasingly difficult to identify pure open source development projects."

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