A survey of 455 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers from nine countries in Asia Pacific, undertaken for Red Hat and Intel by Forrester Consulting, found enterprises in the region turning to open source vendors to innovate, reduce vendor lock-in, and get past the obstacles of security concerns that have been associated with it.
IT decision-makers were surveyed in Australia, China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. Forrester says the study revealed that, among CIOs and senior IT decision makers, open source is not just a cost-saving option; it is also a strategic investment that can lead to digital innovation.
'[the survey] indicates open source usage is moving from community freeware to enterprise-grade solutions,' Forrester said. 'Asia Pacific IT leaders view open source as improving the evolution of technologies that are key to digital transformation, including cloud, DevOps, mobility, and big data.'
According to Forrester, 'In total, 52 percent of technology leaders in Asia Pacific have already implemented or are embracing OSS.' (This statement however is an extrapolation from the results of its survey '“ clearly it cannot definitively assess open source adoption across the region).
'OSS are powering the rapid creation of new customer-facing services, software, and digitized processes. Organizations are able to deliver on customer demands promptly, by removing the heavy lifting and upfront investment needed with traditional licensed technology and/or software.'
According to Forrester 'Asia Pacific IT leaders have clearly translated business objectives into IT initiatives as they focus on integrating back-end systems/applications (65 percent), empowering workforce through mobility (60 percent), consolidating-customer facing applications (58 percent), and modernizing legacy applications (51 percent) to better respond to changing customer needs.'
However priorities differed across countries. 'Integrating the back and front end of systems was identified as a top IT priority in Singapore (76 percent). Mobility for workforce efficiency was at the top for Korea (68 percent). Consolidating systems to create a single customer view was seen at the top for Australia (59 percent), India (67 percent), and Taiwan (68 percent), while updating legacy applications was at the top for Malaysia (68 percent).'
