Open source vendors are not too small - they operate outside of the kiddie-safe sandpits like the bigger companies, says Cherry Olive

While many companies see open source as a way of increasing IT efficiencies and greatly reducing costs, there is a pattern that is seeing them withdraw once they notice that big-name vendors are generally not involved in open source delivery.

This is according to Johann Evans, chief technical officer of unified data management specialist, Cherry Olive, the service implementer for the likes of Talend, a leading open source provider.

"We are seeing this trend repeating itself in the marketplace," said Evans. "Companies are all gung-ho at first, because they realise that going the open source route can slash costs. But they often stop dead in their tracks when they realise that the companies and people that provide these services are not the mainstream - and generally proprietary - big-name companies. Sadly, it is then presumed that delivery capability is not present - just because money does not back the system integrator versus their proprietary counterpart.

"While it must be conceded that proprietary vendors do provide top tier solutions, it is nonetheless interesting to note that some of the best systems - and frequently the most reliable over the world - are built and backed by open source. The consultants and companies that provide services to these open source vendors conventionally have much more honed and serious technical skills compared to the supposedly more respected proprietary counterparts.

"In the open source market, companies need to 'dig below the bonnet' and into the source code to make things work. Open source players don't adopt the working in a 'child-safe sandbox' scenario provided by many vendors - such as is the case when it comes to Microsoft's development stack.

"But I do believe that open source vendors are slowly but steadily building a name for themselves - and we will see a marked increase in open source solutions going forward," he said.