The Ovum verdict on Sun's open software strategy

David Mitchell, Practice Leader, Software and Gary Barnett, Research Director

Sun's open software strategy is bold, forward-thinking and full of potential. However, we believe that Sun needs to be even braver and face up to some of the real shortcomings in its software offering. David Mitchell and Gary Barnett report on Ovum's much-considered verdict.

Sun's strategy is bold, innovative, full of potential and, more importantly, Sun is right

We agree whole-heartedly with the principles behind Sun's strategy. We are in the midst of a profound change in the business model that underpins the software industry - the balance of revenues is shifting from one-off licences to those from service and support, and whilst it will take at least five years for the transition to complete, Sun's vision is spot on. We also believe that the open source development model is a hugely powerful approach to software innovation, which will over time dominate the entire industry.

So there's no doubt that, where it comes to the huge tectonic shift that is underway in the industry, Sun has seen the future.

Consign some of its sacred cows to the barbecue

Sun needs to take a long, hard, pragmatic look at its software portfolio and be prepared to make some tough decisions:

• Sun's application server is dead in the marketplace. Whatever its merits, Sun's application server is a non-entity in the marketplace. Sun should release the application server under a GPL compatible licence, then take a serious look at the open source application server landscape - there are other products that may not be 'better' but which have far stronger prospects
• Sun's development tools are dead in the marketplace. The world revolves around the two ecosystems of Visual Studio and Eclipse. No vendor is powerful enough to stem this tide
• Sun's portal offering is good, but boring. Sun's portal technology is 'OK' - but it's not world beating.

Is this a bold move for Sun Microsystems?

Over the past months, Sun Microsystems has made an increasing number of open source announcements:

• the first was the release of Solaris to the open source community, creating Open Solaris. For some in Sun Microsystems, this was like offering their first-born child for adoption
• in November 2005, Sun Microsystems upstaged its earlier announcement by releasing the majority of its remaining portfolio as open source, including the six Java suites, the N1 management tools and the development tools
• in December 2005, Sun Microsystems made announcements concerning open source database support, first for PostgreSQL and then for the Apache Derby project.

These moves constitute most of the rest of the children in the Sun software family - all put up for adoption.

Gaining agreement and buy-in from all of the relevant stakeholders inside Sun must have been a difficult task. When we use the metaphor of offering up their first-born for adoption, we do not do it lightly. Some of the software team in Sun Microsystems that we have met have a deep emotional tie to their products and offering to the open source community has been very difficult for them to accept. On this basis alone, the strategy represents a bold move for Sun Microsystems - as it is real challenge to some of the cultural heart of the organisation - but it has the potential to pay off for Sun.

Does the Sun Microsystems strategy show vision?

This is a strong vision. We support the idea of a software company earning its revenues from services based on open source software. However, there is no guarantee that this approach won't be usurped and made irrelevant by other economic models.

Is this the right time for Sun Microsystems to adopt this strategy?

Sun's move is early, but not so early that it is foolish, as it gets into the game early and loses relatively little by doing so.

Does Sun Microsystems have the right products to allow the strategy to be a success?

Sun Microsystems' software portfolio does not fare well in a robustly competitive market; to be successful Sun will have to conduct a root and branch review of its portfolio - and must be prepared to put one or two sacred cows onto the barbecue.

David Mitchell is the Software Practice Leader, managing the Software@Ovum advisory services. He also leads the consulting group that focuses on the software and IT services market.

Gary Barnett is the Research Director responsible for Ovum's research into open source, intellectual property and on-demand technology, focusing on the strategic issues surrounding technology selection, best practice and strategy.