Opening new doors with Open Source

OpenOffice is a spin-off of StarOffice, a German office suite acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999. Sun released most of the StarOffice code base in 2000, dubbing the project OpenOffice. Today Sun stlll sells StarOffice, a corporate version of OpenOffice based on the same code base, plus it also offers paid support for OpenOffice.

While OpenOffice is compatible with Microsoft document formats, by default it uses Open Document Format – an open XML-based document format which was adopted as an ISO standard in 2006. The global backlash against Microsoft proprietary formats has seen OpenOffice build a user base as diverse as the French parliament, the Israeli Ministry of Commerce and the Singapore military. Massachusetts was the first US state to mandate the use of ODF as the standard format for all state agency documents.

The corporate world has been slower in coming to terms with the concept of open source, said OpenOffice’s Australian marketing person Jonathon Coombes. Coombes is former secretary of the Australian UNIX and Open Systems User Group and he also runs Newcastle-based Cybersite Consulting, specialising in Open Source.

‘’I think OpenOffice is certainly ready for business,’’ Coombes said. ‘’One of the classic arguments against moving to OpenOffice has been the need to retrain staff, but that becomes null and void if you’re considering upgrading to Office 2007. Microsoft has made some fairly substantial changes to the Office 2007 interface, so everyone will need to learn a new interface regardless.’’

To combat the attraction of OpenOffice and the Open Document Format, Microsoft put forward its own Office Open XML as an ISO format. The format was accepted under controversial circumstances but appeals have been lodged against the decision. Microsoft has announced the next Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack will offer native ODF support, which is expected in early 2009.

Meanwhile native Office Open XML support isn’t expected until the next major release of Microsoft Office, which is several years away.

The advantage of using open standards extends far beyond document formats, said Marc Englaro, general manager of Open Source vendor Fonality. Fonality is the developer of the business-grade TrixBox Professsional Range IP PABX solution, based on the Asterisk project, as well as the TrixBox Community Edition.

TrixBox’s adherence to open standards lets users choose from a range of certified handsets, rather than lock them in to one vendor, Englaro said.

“Open Source begets open standards. The community which works around Open Source software is more open to interoperability and I’d say that would be a big difference between ourselves and the likes of Cisco, Avaya and others – where everything is very, very proprietary,” he said.

“The choice that TrixBox and Open Source offer means you can select from a range of handsets from at least two different vendors for the TrixBox Professional Range and a dozen different vendors for the Community Edition. That choice means you can shop around and people recognise that choice means competition, both from a cost perspective and also a quality perspective.”

TrixBox Community Edition incorporates the latest cutting-edge features and can be considered TrixBox’s research and development arm. The best features of Trixbox Community Edition are eventually incorporated into TrixBox Professsional Range to create a stable, business-grade PABX system. This is a common development model amongst Open Source software developers. Fonality has four employees dedicated to the development of Trixbox Community Edition, along with the wider Open Source community, and this offers TrixBox Professsional Range users a clear view of the product roadmap.

While Open Source is traditionally associated with software, hardware vendors are also leveraging the flexibility of Open Source under the bonnet. OpenGear designs and manufactures enterprise-grade infrastructure management equipment, built on embedded Linux firmware. It counts Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade amongst its biggest customers, along with Australian embassies around the world.

The use of Open Source solutions lets OpenGear offer the channel an enhanced level of interoperability and customisation, said CEO Bob Waldie.

“Our catchcry is that we are vendor agnostic and we will connect to anything,” Waldie said. “We have a Custom Development Kit that we happily give away. We say to people “here you go, go and extend this and modify this – here are all the tools and utilities you need”. This then gives channel partners the flexibility to do customisation to meet a client’s needs, rather than just pushing out someone else’s hardware.

“We specialise in managing multi-vendor environments, and we can only do that because we use Open Source tools to bring in a new area of expertise without having to develop it all ourselves. The Open Source community is important because it extends your development team way beyond the scope of your in-house team of geeks.”

Community is the key for channel players looking to explore the world of Open Source, said Gartner’s Brian Prentice.

“To make the most of Open Source you have to get connected into the community,” Prentice said. “You have to get onto the appropriate discussion boards and blog sites, you have to see what contributions are being made and think about what contributions you are going to make.

“This requires the channel player to reevaluate their position in the greater scheme of things. In the Open Source world they’re becoming a node in a greater network, interconnected with everyone else, whereas in the proprietary world they were a spoke on a wheel and the vendor was the hub. This means in the Open Source world they have to make a commitment to participate in the community. If they are not going to be engaged in the community then their ability to execute effectively and deliver quality service to their customers is going to be hampered.

“Also, any customer who understands the Open Source world is going to question whether a channel player that isn’t participating in the community can really meet their needs. They’re going to ask serious questions about whether they want to engage with somebody who isn’t tapped into the community.”