Dr. Sandeep Krishnamurthy

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Dr. Sandeep Krishnamurthy
MBA560 Guest Speaker

• Associate Professor
• E-Commerce and Marketing
• University of Washington, Bothell

Sandeep is the author of a successful MBA
E-Commerce textbook- E-Commerce Management Text
and Cases and has recently edited two books,
Contemporary Research in E-Marketing Volumes I,
II.  His academic research has been published in
journals such as Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes (OBHDP), Marketing
Letters, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, Quarterly
Journal of E-Commerce, Marketing Management,
Information Research, Knowledge, Technology
Policy and Business Horizons.  He is the
Associate Book Review Editor of the Journal of
Marketing Research and a co-editor for a Special
Issue of the International Marketing Review on
E-Marketing.  His writings in the business press
have appeared on Clickz.com, Digitrends.net and
Marketingprofs.com.  Sandeep was recently
featured on several major media outlets (TV-
MSNBC, CNN, KING5 News Radio- KOMO 1000,
Associated Press Radio Network Print- Seattle
Post Intelligencer, The Chronicle of Higher
Education, UWs The Daily Web- MSNBC.com,
Slashdot.org) recently for pointing out the flaws
in Microsoft Words Grammar Check.  His comments
have been featured in press articles in outlets
such as Marketing Computers, Direct Magazine,
Wired.com, Medialifemagazine.com, Oracles Profit
Magazine and The Washington Post.  Sandeep also
works in the areas of generic advertising and
non-profit marketing. 
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An Overview of Open Source Software
Sandeep Krishnamurthy Sandeep_at_u.washington.edu
http//faculty.washington.edu/sandeep
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When you buy a software package, you get.

• The box.
• The CDs.
• The Software Program.
• Only executable files.
• No source code is usually provided.

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Brief Intro to Source Code

• Source code program instructions in their
  original form I.e., as written by developers.
• When you purchase programs, you usually receive
  them in their machine-language format.
• This means that you can execute them directly,
  but you cannot read or modify them.

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The IP Perspective

• Source codeintellectual property.
• A corporation has the right to protect its IP.
• Legally, the corporation has no obligation to
  reveal the source code for 95 years after it was
  created.
• Windows source code will be available in mid
  2000s.

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But, what about innovation?

• With software products, source code is a
  pre-requisite for innovation.
• Developers need to understand the logic of
  previous developers when enhancing a product.
• Reusability of code leads to major efficiencies.

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Famous OSS Programs

• Operating Systems
• LINUX, BSD
• Applications
• Open Office, Star Office
• Infrastructure
• Sendmail, Apache
• There are many small programs (e.g. Mailman).

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Benefits of OSS to User

• Can add new features to the product.
• Can understand programming logic.
• Can customize changes.
• e.g., Using only subset of features
• Can freely pass the product on to others.
• No concept of piracy. You can borrow a friends
  CD and install the product, for example.
  (Restrictions are on code- not executables).

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The key difference between OSS and commercial
software.

• In commercial software, product innovation is
  limited to a single author.
• In OSS, the user is part of the product
  innovation process.
• Users can suggest features.
• Users can help create new program modules.
• Users can test out early versions as lead users.
• Quicker feedback between user and author.
• Global community means quick fixes to bugs.

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OSS movement is about greater choice

• Users can mix and match.
• Example In the LINUX environment, users can
  pick from different user interfaces(Gnome, KDE),
  Web browsers (Mozilla Firefox), Office
  suites(Open, Star).
• This is possible because the software is free.
• This threatens many companies efforts to
  dominate the entire user experience.

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OSS is Global
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OSS Leads to Greater Reliability

• Companies can test for a small set of
  conditions/scenarios (e.g. hardware
  configurations).
• With a global support community, OSS programs are
  stress-tested on a larger set of conditions
  leading to better reliability.

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Netcraft Survey of 40 million sites in April 2003
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Estimating Economic Impact

• It would cost over 1 billion to develop Red Hat
  Linux 7.1.
• 600 million estimate for Red Hat Linux version
  6.2.
• Red Hat Linux 7.1 includes 30 million physical
  source lines of code.
• Estimate of about 8,000 person-years of
  development time (as compared to 4,500
  person-years to develop version 6.2).

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Perhaps, the truest sign of impact is fear!
Linux is the long-term threat against our core
business. Never forget that! You should be
smothering your accounts from every angle and if
you see Linux and/or IBM in there with it, then
get all over it. Don't lose a single win to
Linux. (Microsofts Brian Valentine, World Wide
Sales)
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Why do developers produce OSS programs?

• To take part in an intellectually stimulating
  project.
• To improve their skill.
• To take the opportunity to work with open-source
  code.
• Non-work functionality.
• Work-related functionality.
• Four types of developers-
• Believers, Fun-seekers, Professionals and
  Skill-enhancers.

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Are all OSS programs free?

• Open source does not automatically mean zero
  price. Pricing is an independent choice.
• However, many programs are free.
• Freelarger access.
• Remember Many commercially available software
  have benefited from OSS products.

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OSS-related revenue models

• Installation/Integration/Customer Support
• Enterprises want accountability.
• Version authentication.
• Releasing premium version of product that is
  available for a price.
• Certification/Training/Education of Developers.

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An Overview of Open Source Software
Sandeep Krishnamurthy University of
Washington Sandeep_at_u.washington.edu
http//faculty.washington.edu/sandeep