CAMPBELL, Ca. – If all things were equal, 53 per cent of 228 U.S.-based IT security professionals surveyed would deploy open source security software versus 47 per cent that would use a commercial product for similar functionality, according to a recent study conducted by Barracuda Networks Inc., a provider of e-mail and Web security appliances.
“Open source software has come a long way,” said Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks. “It is viewed on par with commercial software, which is pretty amazing. I didn’t realize that open source software had hit such a large mainstream acceptance in corporate America.”
In the survey, 80 per cent of respondents cited pricing as the top reason for adopting open source software over commercial software, while 57 per cent selected access to source code and 41 per cent chose community code review as the primary reasons for open source preference.
Drako added that community code review was valuable and much more secure because there are a lot more eyes on a code to fix problems than on a proprietary one.
The reason why Barracuda Networks conducted such a survey was because the company is a big supporter of the open source community and utilizes both open software and commercial software in its products.
“We wanted to get an understanding of how customers viewed those types of software as it might influence us on how we make our choices on which technology to utilize in our products,” said Drako.
In terms of commercial software, the survey found that the top advantage for deploying commercial software over open source software was vendor professional services, at 65 per cent, while 47 per cent of respondents named ease of adoption in their organization, and 47 per cent indicated automated updates.
Since a lot of IT security pros look for pro services in commercial software, Drako said that there exists a business opportunity for the open source community.
“One of the key objections to open source software is it needs to come with some vendor professional services and be a complete solution for the customer. [That] is the next hurdle for open source software to tackle if it is going to continue to grow as it has done,” he added.
While open source software deployment was neck and neck with commercial deployment with the respondents of the survey, Drako said he is unclear whether or not he will see the same results or if open source would create a bigger divide if a similar study was conducted next year.
“Ten to 15 years ago, open source software wouldn’t have gotten a significant percentage but it has come a long way in what it is capable of doing as well as how it is perceived in the corporate world,” he remarked. “I don’t know if it is on a trajectory that will continue or if it has peaked out.”
This column was written by Vanessa Ho of ConnectIT
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