Issues for Cloud Adoption

April 29, 2013, Open Source Business Conference, San Francisco—A panel moderated by Kara Sprague from McKinsey and Co looked at various issues around movement to the cloud, either public or private. Panel members included John Mathon from WSO2, Ram Peddibhotla from Intel, Jim Wasko from IBM, and Peter Yared from CBS Interactive.

Where is the open source industry going?
Mathon noted that open source spurs rapid innovation and drives faster cycles in its application areas like mobile and social. The future is for more open source applications.
Peddobhotla added that it is a community with experience and contributors who develop robust software. The commercial support and distribution of open source apps is showing great momentum and new business models. Open source is moving into the enterprise through such apps as analytics in the cloud.
Wasko mentioned that open source is in many R & D functions, and has advanced from Linux and Apache to Open Stack and Hadoop, etc. The various products and services demonstrate quick innovation and improved reliability. There are enough successes and failures to establish a baseline for other new companies.
Yared commented that the top ten publishers of commercial open source apps are looking at all types of software. To contrast and compare, the commercial vendors are delivering cleaner software than open source developers, but the open companies are quicker at making changes and fixes that users request.

Linux is considered the most successful open source project. What else is there?
Yared declared that they are using lots of open source software including MySQL, Hadoop, etc.

IBM is in commercial, proprietary software?
Wasko suggested that you have to look at all layers. If something is a commodity, or performs some base layer function, it will be on open source. If the available tools are insufficient, then they will generate their own code. They are adding value on top of existing community efforts.

The technology goal is for all software layers work on the Intel platforms, since Intel is driving the pace of silicon forward. Users consume the software through IT houses and internal support in partnerships with vendor support.

Customers want support. In the Apache group, the customers are major contributors, because people will pay for cleaner software.

Does open source change skill sets within a company?
Yared responded that they need the capacity to take any install and run in 15 minutes. As a software type becomes mature, it migrates to free. Few customers contribute to the community development efforts.

Access to open innovations and the tradeoffs?
Wasko offered that companies need to evaluate how much to do on their own, and how much return they get by contributing. The areas of question are getting fewer.
Mathon declared that open source has to provide value to customers, some of whom want to contribute. Companies want to give back as well as consume. The challenges are in moving proprietary functions into open source. In the next 5-10 years, we will see many changes in models.
Peddobhotla said consumers need to consider what they plan to accomplish. The accelerating pace of change in technology calls for a change in internal functions to keep pace with the external changes.

Priorities and risks?
Mathon opined that you need to develop clear criteria for vendors, rating reliability, speed, cost, security, scalability, etc. The best solution is often open source, but you then need to accept rapid change as a part of the solution.

Is it possible to replace existing code with open source?
Yared responded that they replaced home-grown with DoubleClick and the order management moved on to another platform. The era of packaged software is ending as the market is moving to cloud services. Open source is cheaper, better, and is stable. They use a lot of open source tools in their business. Corporate IT is the cost driver.
Peddobhotla noted that the key is participation. Customers need to upgrade existing skill sets and be open to more possibilities to make changes. Differentiation and internal needs can be placed on top of open source code.

Open or die timeline?
Mathon offered that the premature announce of a demise has been around a long time. Open source may become dominate over time, but proprietary software will be around for a long time. It has already been here for over 30 years.
Peddobhotla considered that it depends upon how open source moves the industry forward. Open source helps all move to faster improvements. Nevertheless, both will co-exist.
Wasko jibed that we have been the year of Linux for over 5 years. The industry will move to open source over time. Mobile apps have used cloud APIs for many functions already, but we still have customers with 40 year-old software.
Yared decried the need for better interoperability in all phases and nature of software. Some are starting to move interoperability into projects, and some open source tools need to be replaced as they grow too big to be useful.

What to do for the next 1-2 years?
Mathon suggested that APIs, cloud services, and open source will always improve. You will need to look at everything from an architectural and standards perspective. Services and the cloud join with connectivity.
Peddobhotla said to think about when and how to consume and participate.
Wasko considered that open innovation and collaboration are key. Look and plan to go with whoever is going in your direction.
Yared offered use as much as possible, contribute, and keep bleeding edge out of production.

Legal issues and patent trolls?
Yared opined that companies should shift from accepting and paying, to sharing information with others in the industry and fight as a group. There is an indemnification issue that is starting to be addressed.
Wasko agreed that working as an industry is a better approach.