Reality Check: Everyone Doesn’t Prefer Open Source
We talk so often with “glass half-full” evangelists, it is bracing to remember that enterprise IT is risk averse and slow to change. According to one study, a plurality of IT executives say their companies prefer commercial software over open source. The “IT Architecture Modernization Trends” report found that overall 38% lean towards commercial software, 32% prefer open source and 30% do not have a preference. Call us cynics, but it is not cause for celebration that two-thirds of executives at companies with more than 5,000 employees are essentially saying they do not have a proprietary-first software strategy.
It is noteworthy that C-level executives and those at companies with more than 50,000 employees tend to favor open source versus commercial software. For the C-level, this may be because of potential cost-savings and technology flexibility. The largest companies may also be less concerned about open source security risks and the possible lack of formal support.
This year, The New Stack fielded two surveys about open source. The results paint a much brighter picture, partly because our participants were more likely to be developers that have used open source software before. The results will be published soon. Stay tuned.
DataStax and Dimensional Research’s “IT Architecture Modernization Trends”
The DataStax-sponsored survey went into greater details about databases and modernizing applications. We were not impressed by the finding that 89% believe database architecture is at least very important when building applications that will be run on hybrid or multicloud environments. On a positive note, 50% say their teams will be using open source for application modernization efforts. Microservices architecture and the use of data stream processing is definitely having an impact on the databases that will be used.
DataStax and Dimensional Research’s “IT Architecture Modernization Trends”
Feature image via Pixabay.
