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SINGAPORE—Open source and open standards, or the absence
of proprietary rights in computer programs, may be a
buzzword among managers in the information-technology
(IT) industry, and talk of this movement is not likely
to subside after Oracle Corp. endorsed and adopted both
these principles.
This is
Oracle’s response to the growing trend that technology,
which is growing at an ever-faster pace, can deliver
large benefits for management executives, IT
professionals and, ultimately, the customers themselves.
According to Christopher Chelliah, senior director and
chief of technology architecture solutions of Oracle
Asia-Pacific, the main principle behind Oracle’s
open-source policy is how to be more “customer-centric”
or how to deliver the most value to the customer at the
lowest possible cost.
He was
speaking Wednesday during an Oracle conference on
Oracle’s technology platform, specifically on
open-standards.
"In the
past, organizations approached IT problems like science
experiments-they kept throwing technology at it to
remedy what is wrong," he said, adding that there’s only
enough technology you can throw at the problem before
the system gets too cluttered.
He
ranked the top three problems faced by many management
executives and IT executives thus: the complexity and
high cost of IT ( due to dealing with so many vendors,
thus increasing cost); rigidity in the system, making it
less efficient; and high risk due to closed proprietary
systems.
Open
standards, as adopted by Oracle, have been based on the
three fundamental properties of open standards-based
architecture, integration and comprehensive industry
portfolio.
An open
standards-based architecture, he explained, can be of
great benefit to many business owners since this reduces
the level of risk as the managers have the choice of
“cherry-picking” the applications that they need—and
thus they may be able to save on costs. Furthermore,
since these applications can work with existing IT
infrastructure, there will also be less risk for them.
With
integration, systems will have a higher degree of
interaction within and across the enterprise, resulting
in more flexibility and savings for the business.
Finally,
by delivering the most comprehensive industry portfolio,
specifically with the development of horizontal
applications targeting specific business needs but
without the complexity, customers can get more value
from their IT infrastructure.
“The
insights that will be provided for them will be
invaluable as they have more time in their hands to focus
on the growth of the business,” he added, referring to
policy-level executives.
In the
same event, Shane Owenby, senior director for Linux and
open source of Oracle in Asia-Pacific, delivered a
short talk on Oracle’s strategy on Linux and open
source.
In
response to increasing consumer needs for open-source
products and technologies, and the growing trend of the
coexistence of private source, open-source and open
standards, Oracle has taken steps in adopting,
integrating, developing and distributing open-source
technologies as evidenced by their products such as
Oracle XE and Oracle Enterprise Linux (Oracle’s Linux
operating system). “The fact is, customers want to
deploy Linux,” he said, adding that Linux is “probably
one of Oracle’s best-kept secrets.”
He
noted that one shortcoming of Linux was their
inconsistent support system which Oracle has addressed
with the release of Oracle Unbreakable Linux, a support
program which is being made available to any customer
and not just Oracle users. The purpose of which is to
support Linux users and give them enterprise quality
support at a much lower price.
According to Oracle, its Unbreakable Linux boasts of
the highest code quality, being fully compatible with
Red Hat, and has benefited from Oracle’s testing
standards.
In terms
of industry applications, major players adopting this
program range from government to banking and finance and
the telecommunications industries.
He said
that business size does not matter so much as business
owners are concerned primarily with growth and
solutions, and price will come as a secondary
consideration.
“Our
customers are looking for solutions for their problems,
which is scalability and lowering cost, and Linux can
address the core of many of these concerns,” he said.
Today,
there is growing recognition that market-led, technology
standards deliver real benefits to IT providers and
customers. By driving and supporting open technology
standards with Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle helps
its customers and partners reduce application
development time and maintenance costs; improve
interoperability between systems; enable application
reuse—helping increase the value of existing IT
investments; and prevent vendor lock-in. |
