Jeff's Blog

There are hundreds, even thousands of successful application development projects that have been implemented using an open source solution.  In fact, we recently implemented a customized Magento open source e-commerce for one of our customers.  Given the time frame that we had to work with, an open source IT Solution was the only way we were going to get the project done in time. 

One of the other benefits to using an open source project in our application development efforts, was there were a tremendous amount of features already built and tested.  Neither we nor the client had to think about them or more importantly specify them.

One of the things that I'm surprised about is how some companies are resistant to an open source solution.  It's almost as if they have “not invented here” syndrome.  You've heard of that, haven’t you?  If you haven't, it is where some IT departments view anything that wasn’t written in house by them, it is viewed as some how being inferior. 

Unfortunately if this attitude is being displayed by your IT staff, it could be costing your company thousands of dollars.  I recently learned of a company that is spending over $100,000 more for a custom solution rather than using open source software as the base and customizing it to meet their need.  What’s even more unfortunate is that the business doesn’t know any different.  It reminds me of an old saying: “No body ever got fired for buying IBM.”   Today, some may say that about Microsoft.