Could Open Source Investment Save HP? 126
deadeyefred writes "HP's new CEO, Meg Whitman, has a number of issues to deal with to right the ship and put the company on a growth track again. Instead of massive changes to its organization and product line, could $4.5 billion in open source investments do the trick? An argument might be made that HP could boost its competitiveness by putting half of its R&D budget ($1.5 billion a year) into projects like Xen.org, Android and OpenStack. It would still be less than half what HP is paying for Autonomy and allow it to focus on solving problems rather than protecting proprietary product lines and fiefdoms."
Re:uhm let's see (Score:4, Insightful)
Red Hat - Yes...
IBM - Yes...
It's all in how you go about it all.
However...
Sun screwed up and didn't "get it" quick enough to turn it around for themselves. Starting late on the game and/or not having a handle on it costs dearly.
Palm? OpenSource? I don't see a fully FOSS WebOS. I don't see a fully FOSS PalmOS either.
Netscape? They FOSSed things as they were DYING.
Your examples aren't.
Re:uhm let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
Oracle made their operations profitable within a year without any significant changes to their open source projects. Or in other words, had they chosen to support all the same open source efforts, the changes in marketing and management Oracle introduced still made sun profitable.
IBM contributes heavily to open source, and in fact might be the biggest contributor to open source, and they are quite profitable.
Google contributes heavily to open source, and they are quite profitable.
Companies that contribute to Open Source just cannot make that their *entire* business plan.
Re:uhm let's see (Score:4, Insightful)
IBM contributes heavily to open source, and in fact might be the biggest contributor to open source, and they are quite profitable.
Due to their proprietary hardware and software that they sell. Not due to open source.
Actually, that's not true. In 2010 [businessweek.com], IBM earned $58.7 billion from its business services, technology services, and finance divisions, compared to $40.5 billion for its software and systems and technology divisions. So most of IBM's money comes from consulting and services, in which might involve proprietary products as well as open source software. IBM's policy is to offer its customers solutions that are the best fit for their needs and budgets -- that is, they'll bleed you as much as they can, but if it makes the most sense to use open source software, they'll use that.
Also, even some of IBM's proprietary software is open source. Let me repeat that: Even some of the software that you describe as "proprietary" also comprises open source elements. Not every open source license forbids commercial use. For example, IBM's WebSphere Application Server bundles a modified version of the Apache HTTP server (unless you want to use something else). In reverse, IBM has donated a number of products to the Apache Foundation, and these are usually mature packages that IBM was already deploying for real-world projects (e.g. CloudScape, aka Derby) and continues to use today -- now IBM just gains the benefits of community development. To the extent that Java is also open source, IBM is obviously heavily involved in the Java Specification Process (even if it has its own, proprietary Java products).
So you really can't claim IBM isn't a good open source citizen, and you can't claim IBM isn't profiting from its decision to embrace open source,either (where appropriate). Consider this: In 2010, IBM earned $22.5 billion from its software business. You know what it's gross profit margin from that business was? 86.9 percent. That's right, 86.9 percent. Think open source had nothing to do with that?
The open source part is just leveraged to sell more proprietary hardware and software.
Correction: The open source part is just leveraged -- or, if we can drop the bullshit MBA jargon, it's used to make money. What's wrong with that? I thought that was the whole topic of the thread.
Re:Ridiculous Idea (Unfortunately) (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a time in which HP had a corporate identity that would have fit well with open source. They made great hardware, mostly for professionals. Now they're just another mish-mash jack of all trades tech company that needs to sell consumer products to a disappearing middle class in order to thrive. It doesn't really stand a chance. The only tech company dependent on selling to consumers that's doing well in the last several years is Apple, because they're selling luxury goods.