The Long Tail of IT

In these days of recession and shrinking IT budgets, development groups are forced to do more with less. This appears to be an opportunity for growth for Open Source projects, as companies find it difficult to purchase products, or even expand use of products they currently own. Open source products are available to assist in implementations of a wide range of IT problems. And with a very low cost of entry, development groups can kick the tires, and even implement an entire project, without awaiting the decision of an enterprise architecture group or budget committee. In a recent meeting with AMR Research, analyst Dave Brown talked about “Long Tail” effects within IT, where large, mainstream projects are still getting funding, but the large number of smaller, tactical projects are left to fend for themselves. This is exactly where Open Source can make the biggest impact… the large number of tactical projects going on within a company, often “flying under the radar” of the corporate enterprise architects. And it is not just the stealth projects benefiting from Open Source. Many projects designated as “tactical” or short term solutions have the flexibility to select the most expedient solution, which often turns out to include Open Source. I discussed Long Tail effects in the creation of services here.

So, in addition to areas where Open Source has a solid beachhead, like Linux usage for corporate servers, it certainly appears that Open Source is making additional headway, filling many nooks and crannies in the IT development space.