An IDC
study has found that open source is becoming a fundamental aspect
of services portfolios for major solutions providers such as IBM
Global Services, HP Services, Unisys and Novell.
The report
analysed the open source services competitive landscape by
examining and comparing the leading providers of open
source-related services. It found that open source is moving up on
the investment agenda of companies worldwide, as services providers
- mostly services arms of the big technology companies - have
formalised support, training and certification services to
encourage adoption of open source, principally Linux, on their
products.
As open source
software goes mainstream, says IDC, services suppliers must further
develop open source capabilities in order to meet their clients'
needs and attract new customers.
"A more widespread
adoption of Linux and open source software is encouraged by the
increasing availability of a much stronger set of external support,
training, consulting and implementation services," says Sophie
Mayo, director for IDC’s Emerging Technologies: The Services
Opportunity program.
"There is no
longer any doubt that enterprises are trying to take advantage of
the quality, flexibility, and licence cost savings that open source
software offers. However, they have to take into consideration
integration, maintenance and support costs while deploying and
managing their open source infrastructure.
"As the adoption
increases, services providers are working to become their clients'
single point of contact for all their open source initiatives. They
are also creating more refined offerings, including pre-integrated
stacks of open source or mixed-source components, and are
supporting them."