You are the CIO of your company, and you have to develop an application
of strategic importance to your firm. What are the advantages and
disadvantages of using open-source software? Do you think that this is a
viable option for your company?
Just do response each posted # 1 to 3 down below
Posted 1
Being the Chief Information officer comes with a lot of prestige and
responsibilities. In a decision making role such as the CIO, that person
must decide which application to develop and utilize as a strong
strategic point. I feel that there are numerous advantages in using
open-source software. To begin with, Open-source software can be
inexpensive for an organization that may relatively just be staring off
and does not have the capital to make one from scratch. Another great
advantage is the capability of editing certain aspects of the system
application. “Organizations obtain a license to implement an open-source
software product and either use it as is, customize it, or develop
applications with it.” (Rainer & Prince, 2018.p.377). I really like
the feature of being able to customize the system to the needs of my
organization. The fact that you can take something that already exist
and then work to improve on it makes for a great competitive advantage.
With advantages there are also disadvantages,
including in an open-source system. To start off, it is not cheap for an
organization to develop one from scratch based on the resources wasted
like money and time. I feel that the fact that it takes organizations
plenty of time to figure it out it is because the lack of knowledge
involved in this process. Then we have to think about maintaining the
system working at full capacity and this can be costly to an
organization considering the value spent on resources and missed
opportunities. In my particular, since my company has just started, I
would first think about leasing the application before I invest too much
on one of my own.
Posted 2
To know the benefits and disadvantages of open source we must first
define open-source. The Open Source Initiative defines open source
software as “software that can be freely used, changed, and shared (in
modified or unmodified form) by anyone”(Xie I., Matusiak K. 2016) The
code which is the computer language that allows systems to be programmed
is what company’s development. Most companies that develop this code
don’t allow other users to modify their code or distribute it unless the
code is categorized as public license open-source. Open source provides
many benefits in the following ways. First, open-source is relatively
cheap to implement which is great for businesses that have a low IT
budget. Most companies have very limited resources and convincing an IT
committee to purchase new software is easier when these fall under the
budget. Second, open-sources allows users the ability to modify software
and adapt to meet specific user needs (Xie, I., Matusiak, K., 2016).
Open-source can be customized by the organization’s programmers to add
or remove code to adapt the software to their business needs. This means
that the software will continue to evolve as the needs of the
organization change making it harder to become obsolete.
Now there are certain disadvantages that open-source users
must take into account. First, Maintaining open-source can provide a
challenge to companies. Users must be willing to invest time and
resources into learning the code because they don’t have the traditional
support that traditional software offers. Second, since open source
code may be underdeveloped causing users to get frustrated and not use
it. This would obviously hurt the company and offset any benefits that
would have been generated. In my company, see open-source as a viable
option because the benefits of open-source outweigh the disadvantages.
Open source has been used by many companies and the reason is that most
users favor software that can be improved making technology one of the
most innovative due to the constant improvements.
Posted 3
The
use of open-source software to address business needs is indeed a very
viable option and is an option that many successful and reputable
businesses have chosen. Open-source software (OSS) is that which not
only has source code available but is also allowed to be modified and
redistributed without additional permission. An obvious benefit of
utilizing open-source software is cost. Purchasing software from a
vendor would be considerably more costly. Developing software in-house
has costs involved as well as additional time factors to consider. Other
benefits of OSS derive from the fact that it is developed and
maintained by a very large community who share, and are quite often
passionate about, the common goal of product support and improvement.
The size of the communities involved in enterprise open-source software
suites also provides for a level of security that may be lacking with
other options due to the increased ability to review and vet the code
(Bromhead, 2017). The ability to modify the code provides for a level of
flexibility not available with proprietary software. And it is worth
considering that with OSS, the motivations behind the direction and
development of products is not driven by the bottom-line, as can be the
case with proprietary solutions.
One
last point to consider is longevity. Producers of proprietary software
packages can go out of business or decide to stop developing or
supporting a product. While this may not be as much of a concern with
the expensive solutions from the more established providers, it can
certainly be cause for concern with products provided by others. It’s
much less of a concern with OSS solutions. Since anyone can access the
source code, OSS can evolve continuously as the community can continue
to support and develop it without vendor confinements.
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