Open software innovation networks could be the future of software development

In the current scenario of Globalization and government regulation, the importance of industry standards and protocols has risen to a substantial level. There are many examples of consortiums that define standards and protocols for specific technologies or specific industries. However, the implementation of these standards is often left to ISVs or individual IT organizations.

The drive for collaboration is propelled by the need for IT organizations to quickly and efficiently implement new regulations or standards for their business. Organizations within the same industry can join together as partners in software-innovation networks to create a shared implementation of a standard. A common implementation would mean that the cost is shared and the common deployments would result in greater interoperability. Creating a common industry platform can address the IT challenge of integrating solutions from different vendors and help accelerate the growth of a fragmented market.

The goal of software innovation networks is essentially to create an ecosystem of organizations, commercial and not-for-profit, that benefit from a common platform. These organizations will employ a variety of business models and strategies. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the choice of license and governance model allow for maximum flexibility. The actual implementation of these standards provides very little benefit to the core business of an organization. Today, IT organizations typically rely on ISVs or internal development groups to implement these standards and thus incur the costs of sourcing the implementation.

A consistent requirement of IT organizations is the need to integrate solutions from different vendors. For instance, CRM systems often need to be integrated with e-mail systems; financial institutions need to integrate data feeds from many providers; and large-scale manufacturers, such as automotive or aerospace OEMs, have extensive supply chains that need to integrate across the product lifecycle. Typically, the integration is a cost of doing business, not a core value, so creating a common platform that is adopted by a number of industry players effectively streamlines the integration requirements.

Following the open source model for collaborative software development can cut costs while providing a basis to create other innovation networks to develop technology specific to your company. While few have tried to develop industry-specific or vertically oriented open-source solutions up to now, it could become the future of software development.