Gartner's 'augmented reality' on IT spending
I read with interest ZDNet's report on Gartner's revised IT spending predictions for 2009. The gist? Worst case, IT spending will fall by 2.5 percent, rather than grow by 3.3 percent, with Western Europe and North America the hardest hit.
This doesn't sound so bad, though it's important to remember that Gartner's IT predictions tend to follow the market up or down. In other words, they're a good barometer of what happened last week on the stock market rather than a clear view into the future. If things get worse, Gartner's IT predictions will probably follow them down.
But I don't fault Gartner for not being able to discern the future. Rather, I am confused by its suggestions of where to invest IT dollars. In a list that includes virtualization (good idea), Gartner also suggests spending money on a bevy of buzzwords like "Web mashups" and "semantics," as well as the downright wacky suggestion to invest in "augmented reality."
Where is open source, that low-cost, high-value software development and delivery mechanism? It doesn't make Gartner's top 10, despite being hailed for creating significantly better software and dramatically lower prices.
Indeed, when IDC asked IT and business professionals last year whether open source creates "better quality software," over 60 percent agreed or strongly agreed that it does. How can higher quality at a lower cost not factor into Gartner's suggested IT strategies in a resource-constrained market?
This is perhaps not surprising given Gartner's historical blindspot to open source, but it's a poor service to the CIOs that rely on Gartner for a balanced, rigorous view on IT priorities. It's also not consistent with other Gartner data that suggests that open source is increasingly eating away at proprietary software. Which Gartner should we believe?
Forrester, for its part, does much better in consistently identifying open source's opportunities for enterprises.
Augmented reality? Perhaps Gartner could use some of that.
Chart: The perspective from IDC
Open source creates better software?
(Credit: IDC)
Matt Asay is general manager of the Americas and vice president of business development at Alfresco, and has nearly a decade of operational experience with commercial open source and regularly speaks and publishes on open-source business strategy. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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I'm NOT an ueber-geek. I don't search the Internets (yes i meant to write it that way for effect), for open source utilities or applications. I don't spend my afternoon sifting through the thousands of open source things that are on the internets. Quite frankly... I... don't... have... the... time! I don't spend my off time doing those things. I buy a book, Office Sharepoint Server 2007 by Microsoft Press, for example and whatever I need to know... I'll read, implement, and learn.
I can go buy a book, because I know what I'm looking for. For example, it was through CHANCE that I spoke with an ueber-geek, that told me that instead of using Server 2003's Active Directory, I could just use Samba. But that'd require learning an entirely different OS along with some inter-operability issues that COULD crop up at any moment. If I just bought the Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure book, and skimmed through it, I'd get a quicker understanding than looking at a Samba informational site, since most of the things that are windows based, mesh together seamlessly and can be understood in a synergystic environment.
Plus, given that its Open Source, means security loopholes. How comfortable am I running an Open Source mail server app? Heck no! Since it is open source it's pretty much able to be picked apart at whim... so why would I have that on my network? I'd rather get software/applications that I pay for, that ensure me some type of support system with a response time of same day, if not same hour support. With open source I'll be trolling through message boards and emails all day if not several days. No thanks.
Open Source is viable for ueber-geeks who can manage everything themselves. But, after a certain point of time you'll find that networks just get too big and you'll have to find people that either have the same knowledge as yourself or make the switch to something that is easier to manage.
I don't knock Open Source in driving the community to develop better and more resilient software, because it is true. But it certainly is not easier to manage and support, and therefore for the big enterprises out on the internets, it's probably not a safe and easy to manage solution.
I'm just a IT Director in a Microsoft world... if it was all Linux or open source, I'd learn that instead... but it isn't. And I'm sure the rest of the regular-geek IT Directors, CIO's and whoever else feel the same.
Awesome. A complete misunderstanding of what makes good security and a terrible misuse of the word 'loophole' combined. Also, see several posts back on why the NSA believe the exact opposite.
Now, no-one cares that you're not an Über-Aussenseiter because the companies that make money with F/OSS are selling to companies who have teams of Über-Aussenseiter to deal with it for them.
[b]"I'm just a IT Director in a Microsoft world"[/b]
Really? Good grief, they'll promote anyone these days. Reminds me of the IBM minicomputer programmer who lost her job because she never learned any other skills, like modern programming languages (and by modern I mean C) and the system became obsolete. I would say I don't believe that claim but with the incompetence I witness on a regular basis it's all too easy to believe.
Still, mashups and semantics? Why not just invest in RAD or AGILE or some other dev technique?