Abstract
In many industry verticals, open source software is proving to be a credible alternative to proprietary software. When compared to proprietary software, open source software can offer a number of benefits such as stronger customer involvement, lower costs and better quality. Despite these benefits, the take-up of open source software by incumbent telecommunications providers has been virtually zero, choosing instead to focus on major proprietary commercial-off-theshelf (COTS) packages due to prior strategic investments and negative preconceptions about open source software. Although an immediate change in take-up is not expected, the pressure to reduce operational support systems (OSS) costs is steering telecommunications providers to research potential opportunities for using open source software within their OSS. This paper addresses some of those opportunities. The general opportunities are presented using specific examples from current research. Potential short-term opportunities, using readily available open source customer relationship management (CRM) applications, and potential mid-to long-term opportunities, using open source OSS integration software, are analysed and evaluated. The paper concludes with a recommendation on what telecommunications providers should do to further investigate the opportunities presented by open source OSS.
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