Following several mergers and acquisition this Fyear, 2019 will see open source investments starting to pay even more dividends. Given how it has become the driving force behind much of the world’s cloud-based systems, companies need to keep a close eye on the open source trends that could impact their strategies for the months to come.
With deals such as Microsoft and Github as well IBM and Red Hat, this open source-driven environment will see organizations in a position to take the best aspects of these businesses and come up with something truly great. Thanks to the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the resultant explosion in data points, companies understand that they need the resources of cloud-based systems to extract the most relevant insights.
The days of relying exclusively on proprietary solutions to do this are long gone. Open standards have become part of the approach many organizations take towards implementing technology innovation. And those that have not done so yet, will soon follow as they seek to find relevance in an increasingly digital (and connected) world.
This will also likely impact the cost of solutions. Using open standards is resulting in products being developed faster as data is analyzed in virtually real-time. Understand what customers want and providing the customization to do so, have become integral to the operating environment today. And the secret to this must be the open source foundation on which this is built.
Local changes
The imminent arrival of several international data centers in South Africa (two from Microsoft and one from Amazon Web Services) will have a significant positive impact on the local market. This not only shows those skeptical of the cloud that investments are being made, but, more importantly, South Africa is viewed as a platform for growth into the rest of the continent when it comes to the cloud (and open source).
The evolving landscape is seeing business requirements also shifting. Next year will see a veritable land rush for position in the cloud environment. More C-suite decision-makers are open to going, well, open, and vendors and service providers are clamoring for market position.
Providing even more impetus for this is the recent launch of what many consider to be South Africa’s first truly digital bank. Focusing on ‘behavioral’ banking, all its systems are cloud-based highlighting the security, availability, and redundancy of going this route. Moreover, it is built on open standards all but giving the death knell to those who think proprietary is still the preferred method of doing business.
Next year will be an intriguing one to see where the cloud and the open standards approach will be heading. Strap in and enjoy the ride.
About obsidian systems
Obsidian Systems is an established supplier of Open Source software solutions. The company was started in 1995 as a services provider targeting businesses and organizations looking to integrate and leverage off Linux infrastructure. Obsidian Systems has expanded its knowledge base in partnership with subsidiaries Cape Town based Autumn Leaf and GuruHut.
The expansion of skills is now a formidable team with Java™ expertise aligning our Enterprise Open Source solution for retail, supporting technology and consulting services across enterprise-ready open source infrastructure, big data, collaboration and agile IT strategies for your business. Obsidian Systems and its subsidiaries strive to bring three legs to the South African market: the first being vendor-certified products, the second bein g local skills providing consulting, development and support and the third being vendor-certified training and certification. With these three elements, any organization can trust the enterprise open source solution provided.
