Effects of the trend and how it will meet goals

OS has a on the rise in software and it is progressively changing the software business. Most of the profits in the software business come from custom-made software, the rest from so called 'shrink-wrapped' software. Companies selling this 'shrink-wrapped' software will be affected by OS most. When there is an abundance of potential customers for a specific product, it’s a good sign that there are a lot of people attracted in an OS-alternative which will improve the chances for the development. And the companies that now have a monopoly position in the industry will see more and more competition that they are not used to. There are countless unhappy closed source customers that are anxious to switch to open source products. Consequently, now programmers have the drive to develop it. Microsoft, with its monopoly of Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer, and its questionable business methods, is a major 'target'. Most people use Microsoft Windows, often because that is what everyone knows and mostly simply unaware of OS alternatives especially since Windows is pre-installed on their machine. MS has spent a lot of money on their marketing strategy and also created an environment that if people didn’t use MS problems would occur. Microsoft is even consciously breaking the law today in effort to maintain their monopoly position regardless of the enormous amounts of money it pays for lawyers and fines. Microsoft has already been fined for overpricing, trying to hijack Java, and many more offenses. Not only is Microsoft breaking the rules but they are sending in armed marshals for people in violation of software license. Ernie Ball, the world's leading maker of premium guitar strings, and previously a very happy MS customer, felt mistreated and swore off MS, to find out that went a lot easier than he expected. Eleven years ago the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at Ernie Ball’s Calif.-based company that turned up a few unlicensed copies of Microsoft programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. The news spread and Sterling Ball was humiliated by the experience. Ball told his IT department that he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months and he wouldn’t do business with someone who treated them so poorly. Ball's IT crew chose on a a wide variety of open-source software--Red Hat's version of Linux, the OpenOffice office suite, Mozilla's Web browser--plus a few proprietary applications that couldn't be duplicated by open source. Ball, whose father, Ernie, founded the company, said that this transition was a breeze, and since then he's been happy to praise the qualities of open-source software to anyone who asks. In fact he spoke with CNET News.com about his experience in effort to eliminate the fear from dumping Microsoft and going open source which is a savings. Sterling Ball is now realized the importance of talking with the tech people. Ball’s IT saved $80,000 right away by going to open source, and each time Windows creates a new operating system again they save more money because they don't have to buy new equipment to run the software. Another huge savings is they can run old computers because Windows doesn’t bog down the machine. The software works well with the computers they are using and designed to fit the person using the machine. The machines are not filled with excess fillers that just waste space and time. Many people believe that without Microsoft there will be no support but that is just one of their scare tactics. There are no viruses or calls to Red Hat to fix problems. Since the system is server based the IT guy doesn’t even have to leave his desk to a corner of the building to maintenance a server, the support comes from the system services within. Open source is recently new and more and more buisinesses will buy into the open source. Developers will and already begun to create real-world applications people need to run a business such as accounting, engineering, art and design tools, and so forth. Companies are switching to Open Source for a number of reasons. One of open source's most touted benefits is its price. Download the software, install it, and don't pay a penny. That's the theory, but to a surprising number of open-source user companies, the price tag-or lack of one-is irrelevant. "It's not about being cheap," insists Employease's Alberg. "It's about doing our jobs effectively—and we're willing to pay quite a bit for that. We want stable software that does what it says it will do (Wheatley, 2004). Another benefit in moving to open source is the performance improvement that has resulted. According to Alberg, “The move to Linux, for example, dramatically cut the rate of server failure experienced by the company”. Typically, under NT, one of the company's servers would fail each working day. Now, he says, "we get at most two failures a month—and often don't get any in a month” (Wheatley, 2004) The lesson of the Web is that standardization is better than differentiation. As the past decade has shown, proprietary software like Microsoft has its drawback such as security loopholes, high priced license fees, and an unsettling reliance upon a single vendor. In offices around the globe, an era of open-source standardization, determined to condemn such drawbacks to history, may be dawning.