According to IT services provider, Unisys, open source software is set to have a similar impact on the marketplace as the internet did in the 1990s.

Mike Dooner, director programmes and alliances, Unisys Australia and New zealand, which intends to tout its wares at the upcoming LinuxWorld Expo in Sydney later this month, indicated that his company has come out solidly behind open source alternatives to proprietary solutions. Unisys is positioning itself as a service provider that helps clients migrate from proprietary operating systems, applications, middleware and databases to less costly open source alternatives.

The traditional software development market, based on proprietary ownership, looks set to be turned on its head in 2006, with open source software set to have a similar impact on the marketplace as the Internet did a decade ago,Ӕ says Dooner. With open source applications appearing in the marketplace from smaller ISVs, the evolution of a completely different software development industry is inevitable.

ӓThe key benefit of open technologies such as open source software is freedom of choice. When organisations have options, they are not locked into any one vendors products or services. That moves control from the vendor to the client.  Unisys is the only service provider to offer a product with no proprietary components to protect. Unisys is completely solution agnostic and offers choices at every layer based on each clientҒs current investments and future goals.