Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft, on Consumerization of Information

by Sam Dean - Mar. 10, 2009Comments (0)

The Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) is rapidly approaching, to be held March 24th and 25th at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The conference will include much discussion on the future of open source. In preparation, OStatic has been running a series of guest posts on this theme, featuring thought leaders from top open source projects. We checked in with Dries Buytaert, founder of the Drupal content management system, and co-founder of Acquia. Martin Schneider, director of product marketing for SugarCRM, weighed in on the open cloud, and Novell VP Justin Steinman wrote about open source and mass customization. In this new post in the series, Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft, discusses the consumerization of information.

Open Source Will Fuel Consumerization of Information

By Brian Gentile, CEO, Jaspersoft

More than a decade ago, open source drastically changed software development and the economies of software at the infrastructure level. Today, that disruption is ripping its way through the enterprise at the business application level. We see adoption of open source software growing more than ever as the economy puts new pressure on CIOs and IT managers to manage technology purchases that can more quickly drive a positive impact on the bottom line. But that adoption is also growing because open source software is mature and feature-rich; it has both the technical and business merit to be integrated and deployed in any business environment.

So, mission accomplished? Not even close. Before we pat ourselves on the back, we need to look closely at the expectations of a new generation of workers entering the enterprise – and take an even closer look at how open source software will be the way in which the software market and community meet those expectations.

Simply put, enterprise information systems are beginning to require a simpler, more consumer-oriented approach to appeal to the younger generation of up-and-coming workers. I refer to it as the "consumerization of information.” The concept is based on a very real workforce demographic shift that becomes even more pronounced starting in 2009. As the aging workforce in the largest economies continues to retire (in the U.S., it’s the baby boomer generation) and more young workers enter and climb higher, we’ll see a widening “expectation gap” between the anticipated behavior of enterprise applications and their actual behavior.

Software vendors that design products that work and display according to new web principles will fare well with this younger generation of workers. Those software vendors that do not will become much less relevant. This is where open source comes in. Only the open source development model is flexible and transparent enough to quickly cater to these new expectations.

Take the Jaspersoft community as just one example: Jaspersoft’s open source software is rapidly updated by a community of more than 90,000 members. The resulting broad ideas, collaboration and rapid, interactive development makes open source software companies inherently equipped to address the need for more consumer-oriented enterprise apps. Software dinosaurs operating under the aged principles of the past simply can’t move fast enough to provide the features that today’s workforce expects.

So, my prediction for the future of open source is that our sons, daughters, nieces and nephews, and what they’re teaching us about how to make web-based software services work for them, will drive the next decade of open source growth. The open source development model is the only way that we’ll enable them to both work in a way that they expect, and to build tomorrow’s innovations quicker than we might ever have imagined.

What are your thoughts on open source's future? Please take a moment to fill out the Future of Open Source survey here and share your perspective.

The results will be announced at the Open Source Business Conference on March 24th–25th at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, CA.