Such is the growing acceptance of open source software (OSS) in the enterprise that Obsidian, southern Africa`s leading enterprise open source provider, recorded its best year despite the global recession.
"The appetite for open source solutions is healthy and growing, helped in part by the need to optimise IT spend, but also due to more organisations being exposed to the operational benefits of running these systems," says Muggie van Staden, Obsidian MD. "The local market is still a little behind the global growth and adoption curve, but is showing strong enough growth for us to have recorded 25% growth over the previous financial year.
"While the recession certainly prompted more IT departments and CIOs to consider open source solutions, we have seen continued investment in our solutions even since the economic outlook started improving. This shows us that they have realised the value and viability of OSS, which bodes well for the industry as a whole."
Van Staden says the fact that the vast majority of local banks have applied OSS solutions - often in mission critical environments - is further evidence that these systems can withstand the most stringent operational demands.
Investment in Obsidian solutions is concentrated on the server environment, with the Red Hat solutions pack representing the bulk of company`s solutions revenue.
A combination of factors, including the comparative lower licence and operating costs, superior stability, scalability and ease of use contribute to the wide application of this platform and its component parts and services.
"The seamless interoperability with existing Unix and Windows software and hardware systems go a long way to Red Hat`s popularity," says Van Staden.
Sales of the platform`s JBoss middleware solution are particularly strong for it`s ability to bridge the gap between diverse enterprise data sources, projects, applications, and architectures.
Obsidian has also noted a greater number of enquiries into OSS database solutions, indicating a growing confidence in their ability to deliver improved performance and stability over proprietary systems.
"We expect to see another strong year ahead as we appear to have broken through a glass ceiling thanks to the recession forcing organisations to take a closer look at their return on investment without sacrificing operational integrity," he adds. "The past year really opened up doors to us that were previously closed despite Obsidian`s size and reputation in the industry, while our existing customer base is also investing more heavily in our services and solutions."
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