Open Source vs the global downturn?

Confused of Calcutta is JP Rangaswami ‘s popular blog and a fixture on my own blogroll. JP has put forward some thoughts on survival strategies for dealing with the economic downturn. His argument describes how the corporate immune system switches effortlessly into a “not invented here” mindset and JP then exhorts CIOs to embrace opensource solutions as a cost reduction strategy, closing with an intriguing statement: “Remember, the objective is to reduce costs, not heads. Given the option, what would you rather do? Fire people or increase your use of opensource? Think about it.”

Well I don’t agree with JP’s advice. In these circumstances, the “not invented here” mentality won’t even get a look in so we should be honest with ourselves and admit that good people are going to lose their jobs as a result of the recession. That is a sad but most likely outcome.

The choice facing organisations is far more fundamental than looking at cost elimination, let alone the choice between open source and sacking people. For some hard-pressed organisations, the choice will be between re-arranging the deck-chairs and plotting a completely new course for more favourable waters.

I agree with that the time for change is ripe. But not in any of the ways JP describes.

Most enterprises of size are heavily locked in to vendor contracts deliberately designed to mitigate against short-notice cancellation.

I know from experience that such poison pills are widespread, generally represent millions of dollars of stranded costs and often totally blind-side naive management teams.

Furthermore platform transition to open source is absolutely not a cost-cutting option in the short to mid-term because even a small, simple transition costs a lot, financially and labour-wise.

In the short-term we are all going to have to tighten our belts. The wise will also look to the long-term and plan to do things better in the future.

The message is loud and clear, if we really want to do things differently, we need to move forward from the redundant IT-centric paradigm.