German businesses prefer open source

MORE THAN HALF of companies based in Germany use open source software, making the country the world's open source hotspot.

A survey of IT procurement staff from Germany, Great Britain, and the North America, found that 59 per cent of Germans admitted to using open source software in their companies. Some 48 per cent of British companies have been wooed by open source but in the US and A and Canada only 38 per cent of those questioned were prepared to trust the stuff.

Of the six hundred IT and business professionals from financial services and other industries questioned overall, some 42.9 per cent of respondents said they were already using open source software.

Respondents said they generally found open source software more flexible, appreciating the access granted to the source code. If possible they like to steer clear of Voleware.

An unsurpirsing 80 per cent said the main benefit of open source was the lack of licensing fee.

"One surprising note is that one-third of the organizations surveyed are now likely to consider Open Source business intelligence in their evaluations. This is a huge shift from just a few years ago,” said Mark Madsen, president of Third Nature and faculty at The Data Warehousing Institute in a statement. µ

L'INQ
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