Open Source fires Catalyst IT to front

Graeme Kennedy [NBR]
 
Open source software has gained credibility and trust in New Zealand for its flexibility and ease of use without the expensive licence fees charged by major computer companies, says Wellington firm Catalyst IT.
 
Gavin Thompson, one of Catalyst’s six owner-directors, said people five years ago did not understand what open source was.
 
“But now it is a normal part of general IT conversation,” he said. “Trepidation about it has disappeared and there is confidence in it as a business platform.
 
We started Catalyst in 1997 we hadn’t decided to use open source but soon realised it has so many advantages in what we were trying to do — it is easy for customers and us developing software for them.”
 
The firm is New Zealand’s biggest open-source solutions provider with customers including Telecom, Fairfax and government departments.
 
Catalyst IT topped the computer services sector in
The National Business Review’s monthly Exciting Companies series with a rating of 66.5 based on surveys by New Zealand market research company New River.
 
It led Datacom, CANZ (Computer Access NZ Trust) and three multinational giants — Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Vodafone (see table).
 
Fellow owner-director and New Zealand Open Source Society president Don Christie said an interest in users’ freedoms was one reason Catalyst was started.
 
“Through the 1980s and 1990s the big companies such as Microsoft locked their customers in with technologies and licensing fees,” he said.
 
“We were not happy with that and neither were the clients. In one of the first net business sites we developed, 50% of our modest budget was spent on commercial licenses.
 
“Fees for very large companies can be in the millions of dollars so there is growing recognition that open source, with no license fees, can provide real returns on investment — customers pay only for our consulting and support.”
 
Mr Christie said the open source movement began in the early 1990s, led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology programmer Richard Stallman.
 
“He believed software had become so critical to people’s and companies’ infrastructure it should not be captured by commercial interests,” he said.
 
“Stallman wrote the General Public Licence [GPL] to give users the right to freely use, modify and distribute software such as Firefox, Linux and Open Office, which have been released under it.
 
“GPL established user rights and although it has been challenged it has withstood the test of time and now has lots of software of all types. Microsoft and the other companies have their own licenses so their software cannot be copied.
 
“The source code — the logic which tells the computer what to do and is needed to make programmes work — is released with the licence so with open source people can make changes and amendments but with the others the codes are secret.
 
“The industry is still trying to block open source and Microsoft has listed it as the biggest risk to its business.”
 
Mr Christie said the Open Source Society had around 500 members including businesses. Catalyst sponsored New Zealand’s annual Open Source Awards.
 
New River said the New Zealand computer services sector was worth $4.7 billion with 18% growth in the past three years despite a shortage of skilled workers. More than 8500 firms employed 21,550 staff.
 
The sector is booming with 20% rating business as very buoyant, 55% buoyant and 25% neutral. Companies dealing mostly with business clients said they were doing very well, tertiary specialists were busy while consumer and home computer work was slower.
 
“The market for computer services is growing, with a proliferation of small niche companies to service new hardware technologies, software and online applications,” New River said.
 
“There is now everything from security services, training, online backup and disaster recovery to designing new systems and infrastructures — service needs will keep growing on the back of new technologies being adopted.”
 
Link:
http://www.newriver.co.nz/exciting-companies/computerservices/