Building on the foundations of open computing

Open source projects, such as Linux and Java, have gained strength in mainstream businesses by serving as low-cost alternatives to commercial software. They provide capabilities that rival those of proprietary software, thanks to support from a large developer community. Popular open source projects can also accelerate open standards, the collective building blocks for products, by serving as a common implementation. Businesses and vendors using open standards free up development and services budgets for items that offer higher value and competitive advantage.

Open source is a part of the wider open computing movement, along with open standards and open architecture, as shown in the following diagram. Together, these initiatives enable integration and flexibility, and benefit customers by helping them avoid vendor lock-in.

Figure 2.1: Community innovation as a result of the open computing movement

Enterprises are...