For a Few Bucks Less

With the onset of the global slowdown, a lot of companies, like Microsoft
were reported to have moved to open source software from proprietary options in
order to save upfront costs. But Microsoft could retain a chunk of customers,
because, according to them, they found that sole open source software solutions
fail to bring long-term cost savings.

Pallavi Kathuria, director, server business group, Microsoft India says that
though some customers were making drastic switches to alternative technology
like commercial open source software options such as Linux, they were also
realizing hidden costs.

Citing excerpts from reports, she says industry analysts warned that IT
decision markers often overlooked key cost factors.

"It is important for IT and business decision makers to evaluate and assess
long-term total cost of ownership (TCO) for technology investments. Gartner
predicts that over the next four years, 50% of mainstream IT projects using OSS
will not achieve cost savings over closed-source alternatives," she says.

A Voice of Disagreement

In contrast, Rahul De, Hewlett-Packard chair professor in ICT for
sustainable economic development at IIM Bangalore had recently presented a few
case studies in BFSI, education, manufacturing, and welfare, where a company
saved around Rs 490 mn by introducing FOSS in their 3,500 server and 30,000
desktops. Based on some statistics, he measured that the country could save
around Rs 10.1 crore even if 50% of the PCs countrywide adopt FOSS.

According to the Redmond based firm, more and more customers and open source
partners felt that deploying new open source software solutions on existing
Microsoft platforms brings best value. The company feels that their
interoperability drive is weaving the right magic in customer retention and
satisfaction.

This shows as the company has developed a family of developers and is
increasingly roping in more members through its interoperability drive.

Kathuria informed that there are an estimated 1.2 mn developers in India in
2009-10, of which approximately 750,000 are on the Microsoft platform.

"We also estimate that about 350,000 developers work with all platforms and
technologies, depending on what the projects and customers demand. This number
has been growing annually at about 30%. IDC data suggests that the IT market
will drive creation of nearly 7,000 new businesses in the next four years, which
will fuel this growth."

She adds, "Developers want cutting-edge technologiesthat help them innovate
and build solutions that would eventually help them make money. Microsoft caters
to these needs of the community. In fact, statistics show that for every dollar
earned by Microsoft, partners make $8 (source: IDC). In the changing environment
which is fast moving towards heterogeneity, developers are also under pressure
to come up with applications that are interoperable and beneficial for the
industry."

Akanksha Prasad/CIOL

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in