Succeeding with Open Source

Unchanging Process Risk

IT organizations have well-developed processes for commercial software.

IT organizations have had 40 years to hone their processes for selecting, procuring, and implementing commercial software. They have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to optimize their organizations for using commercial software. IT organizations are experts in writing request for proposals (RFPs), negotiating contracts, setting service level agreements (SLAs), managing upgrades, and the like. Each of these tactics is designed to reduce risk—to make the dependence on the vendor manageable. Often IT organizations and their vendors resemble two tired old prizefighters stumbling to the center of the ring to take up the battle where the last round ...