Sandeep Menon of Novell talks about Open Source software for SMBs

Sandeep Menon of Novell talks about Open Source software for SMBs

Sandeep Menon, Country Head, Novell India talks about what kinds of open source solutions would be appealing for Indian SMBs

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Open Source has made such progress in the enterprise space. Is it doing the same in the SMB segment?

Initial apprehension and skepticism has died down. This has resulted in SMBs being more and more receptive to the adoption of Open Source. I don't feel that there is much difference in the way SMBs and enterprise perceive value while considering the adoption of Open Source. Both see its value proposition in the same manner. If you look in terms of cost saving and efficiency, enterprises probably adopted Open Source much faster because the scales of economics are larger. As of now, the three biggest markets for our offerings are government, banksing and SMBs. The Open Source is currently in a state where it is gaining strength in small and midedium-sized business segments.

Are there certain types of applications that are especially attractive to smaller businesses?
What are the obstacles to wider Open Source adoption?
There are two or three obstacles which, if removed can help SMBs grow faster:
Availability of Skills: A key obstacle is the availability of skilled manpower in the Open Source space. For SMBs in metros, it is easier to find people with the required skills in Open Source software, than those in remote areas. While, in smaller cities, very often SMBs are serviced by local IT service providers, who often tend to be comfortable with Windows. This is an issue that all Open Source software providers as well as the government needs to address, given the rapid growth and deployment of Open Source solutions around the World.
Awareness: Within the SMB space, there is continued need for awareness about what constitutes compliance as well as what options are available from the Open Source world. Greater the awareness level about the rules and regulations amongst people, better are the chances of things moving towards compliance. And you would then also see the growth of alternative solutions which adhere to compliance norms. The sheer knowledge that all the applications and tools are available as Open Source software, can actually bring a sea change in the levels of adoption.
What are the factors which prompt SMBs to run their applications on Open Source?
Fundamentally, I don't think SMB customers think radically different from an enterprise customer. It is just that SMB customers are little more pragmatic about the RoI. They do not generally make huge investments and wait for results to materialize over a period of time. The turnaround time is rather short. In that sense, Open Source is a viable option that fits into their earmarked budgets today, and delivers TCO savings within very short periods of time.
Most SMB customers are currently looking at solutions which can help them set up office and productivity environments quickly. So, we design SMB bundles for setting up workgroup areas like firewalls, proxy servers, file and print servers and all the other network services at the click of a button. They may also be looking for alternatives to the traditional Microsoft Enterprise Agreement stack, including operating systems, mail, calendaring, scheduling, collaboration tools, directory services, desktop OS, office suites, etc. We are also witnessing requests from SMB customers for a class of products in the Accounting and mini ERP space, which delivers the basic requirements in a simple and efficient manner.

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