Open Source Consulting…
September 28, 06 by BharaniSince one of my job roles entails evaluating Open Source technologies, I was wondering if there are any good career options in “Open Source Consulting”. There are some firms doing exactly this.
Organizations world-wide are slowly embracing Open-source solutions as the choice for the enterprise-level IT needs. The challenge, as I already mentioned in one of the posts, lies in evaluating the suitable solutions and Recommending an executable-strategy based on the fit analysis. There should be a deep understanding of each and every open-source offerings across all solution space. Every possible advantage and disadvantage should be captured. The inter-dependencies/synergies/incompatibilites between different open-source technologies should be documented. Best practices in deploying open-source technologies should be arrived at…
Different set of Solutions should be formulated by mixing and matching different technologies. The possibilities are endless, just like in the business of consulting.
As more and more Tech start-ups are cropping up in India, as more and more web 2.0 based companies are coming up everyday, I believe there is good business opportunity for Open-source consulting in India. My thoughts…
jeeva Says: 29.09.06 at 8:29 am
Who would be the customers? and how many of us have the experience of seing begining to end of open source deployment in a corporate/govt or even SME segement?
Do you agree that for big organizations People cost is more than 60% of an IT development?(If it was 10% of the total build cost, why offshore?). Let say on a $20m initiative, what would be saving by using Opensource? IMO Cost aspect of opensource dont seem to appeal to a CIOs and other decision makers down the chain.
Chiranth Says: 29.09.06 at 12:08 pm
@jeeva
Yep, your right that it’s not the cost factor *alone* that would appeal to the CIOs and other CXOs.
If a non-technology company’s work is highly dependend on IT, it might make sense for it to choose software whose development it can influence. Open source gives a company the opportunity to transform itself from an IT-client to an IT-participant. Whether or not this is beneficial is a different question.
Bharani Says: 02.10.06 at 11:53 am
Jeeva, Cost aspect is not the only winning factor. The business aims at customers who are interested in implementing open-source solutions, who are contemplating whether to go for open-source route…
Web 2.0 is gathering momentum partly because of open-source technologies and solutions.
“End-to-end how many of us have seen?”…Well, you need to have consultants, who have seen different implementations…
It is a very niche business…Google search results shows examples of the business…I did not do a thorough business case evaluation…
Bhargava Janakiraman Says: 03.10.06 at 2:40 pm
Hope you remember me…. how are you doing and howz life going on. There are firms doing open source consulting in india… join blug & lug and you will hear a lot abt them…
also have a look at exocore.com.
Cheers