Direction of Open Source for OSS implementation

Abstract

The Open Source movement has touched almost every sphere of software technology that we know today. The OSS/BSS world also has seen significant application of Open Source software into their products. Major carriers and service providers are still wary of migrating to Open Source software for critical applications though most of them are involved with Open Source initiatives in one form or the other. For most carriers and service providers the top-of-the-mind issues are scalability, security and performance. Some key questions raised by them are, • How does Open Source give / not give competitive advantage? • Is Open Source the best path to cheaper software? • Are Open Source and collaborative development necessarily tied together? • Is Open Source a way of reducing discontinuities that arise when conventional products leapfrog one another? • What are the relative lifetime costs of Open Source and conventional software? • Is it robust enough to handle my mission-critical applications? • What about service support once I migrate to an open source platform? Though Open Source software is much less expensive and tests have proven their efficacy, system integrators have not rushed headlong into the open software fray. Most SI's, though excited about the Open Source revolution, are still waiting and watching where this initiative is headed. This panel discussion focuses on some of the key issues and advantages of Open Source platforms in business impacting applications such as OSS/BSS solutions.