Understanding the 'Why' Behind Open Source
When we talk about business and IT strategy, people often discuss:
- What they’re going to do (“we are going to build a cloud”).
- When they’re going to do it (“this year”).
- How they’ll achieve it (“with this technology stack”).
- And occasionally why (“because the market is moving towards more utility services and we need to be part of the game”).
In many cases, the why is surprisingly the weakest part – commonly reactive and fairly hand waving in reasons. But why is this?
In military engagements, I’ve often found the why is often the clearest part – “we need to take this hill because the advantage it will provide us over enemy positions”. The what, when and how all stems from this – bombard the hill with artillery, send in ground forces, launching tomorrow morning – those actual details changing during the action; no plan generally survives first contact intact.
But why the big difference? Why is the why clearer in one and not the other?
The difference is the map and situational awareness. Critical in military engagements is having a map of the environment, the battlefield and the enemy positions. This map is fluid, as combatants generally don’t stand still but the map helps gives you the why and the where to strike.
In business, we generally don’t have a map of the landscape, hence where we need to attack is often unclear which is probably the reason the why becomes more hand waving.
About eight years ago, I started developing a method of mapping out that business environment. By examining value chains within organizations and the state of evolution of components within those value chains, I could plot out how markets would change, potential competitor moves and where to attack. The why became clearer with the map.
In 2005, it became clear how IT would shift towards utility services, how the various new components from brokerages to platforms would form and how the actors (opponents) would probably play.
Over the years, people have often joked that I must have a Time Machine as I have “an eerily precise ability to predict changes”. The reality is, like a general who knows where to bombard because he or she has a map, I just have a map and when you look at it many things are clear. Exploiting that landscape and strengthening your position through the use of open techniques (from source to data) and the building of ecosystems is easier if you have a map.
This report examines the competitive power of open (whether source, hardware or data) and the importance of mapping the landscape. One of the most surprising discoveries was the stark difference between companies when examined on their level of strategic play (that is, understanding and mapping of the landscape) versus their willingness to act (that is, use of open to manipulate the environment).
For some companies – the chancers, who do not think strategically or are willing to use open in such a way – it does not bode well. If “software is eating the world”, then we should all be wary of “Geeks bearing gifts”. We all need to start to learn how to map landscape and to use open not just as something we consume but something we compete with.