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The Open Group can help?
Why does it matter to the Procurement Manager?
The Open Brand helps public and private sector organizations throughout
the world buy open systems with confidence and with the minimum of procurement
overhead.
Like all buzz words, "open systems" has become much talked
about, and in the process, little understood.
For procurement professionals, already concerned with quality standards,
benchmarking, outsourcing and the latest directives from Brussels, discussions
about open systems and standards-based computer architectures may seem
at best irrelevant; at worst a distraction.
But open systems cannot, and should not, be ignored. Research amongst
IT buyers has shown that while sales of proprietary systems declined by
2 per cent between 1990 and 1994, open systems sales rose by 37 per cent
worldwide. This growth in market share is expected to continue at more
than double the rate for proprietary systems. Research has also shown
steady growth in the number of organisations using open systems, from
68 per cent in 1991 to an expected 96 per cent in 1997.
The experience of organisation who have adopted an open systems strategy
shows that open systems offer very real, measurable business benefits
to the organisation as a whole.
Just as importantly, open systems procurement based around using the
Open Brand have been shown to provide specific benefits to purchasing
professionals. The example of NASA is instructive.
When the world's foremost scientific space organisation adopted an open
systems strategy based around the Open Brand, the benefits to users were
accompanied by improvements in the Agency's procurement process. Under
the new procurement process, order times have been cut dramatically. Instead
of delays of up to two years, NASA users can now place an order within
2-3 weeks and expect, on average, to take delivery of the equipment within
around 45 days. Centralised co-ordination in procurement has also given
the agency more bargaining power on both price and function.
What is The Open Group?
The Open Group is an international vendor and technology-neutral, not-for-profit
consortium ... [read
on]
How does The Open Group make a difference?
One of the principal objectives of The Open Group is to simplify open
systems procurement. Through user and industry participation, The Open
Group prioritises open systems requirements and integrates existing standards
(formal approved de jure standards where they exist, otherwise
widely supported de facto standards) in order to produce a single,
coherent integrated and controlled open systems definition with international
buyer and IT industry agreement. This can then be translated by vendors
into widely available products carrying the Open Brand.
What is the Open Brand?
Established ten years ago, the Open Brand provides purchasers with a
clear and unambiguous guarantee from the vendor that each product carrying
the brand will comply with the widest range of open systems standards.
So for those responsible for procuring open systems the Open Brand on
a vendor's product is a guarantee that the software bearing the brand
will:
- conform to the specification,
- will remain conformant, and
- in the event of non-compliance, faults will be corrected within prescribed
timescales.
That users have found the Open Brand to offer a practical, independent
approach to implementing Open Systems is shown in the fact that over US$23
billion of commercial procurements have been made using the brand; $7
billion of that in 1995 alone.
The public sector and beyond
Competitive tendering has become a fact of life in the public sector.
In recent years a series of initiatives has extended it to many private
sector organisations. European Union procurement legislation now covers
large commercial organisations such as water, gas and electricity utilities,
oil companies and telecommunications providers. Similarly the provisions
of the US Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) has meant many bodies
outside the European Union are also bound by the legislation. This requirement
for fair and open competition in IT procurement entails a move away from
proprietary technologies towards open systems.
A key feature of the EU procurement policy is the removal of technical
barriers to trade by making national standards illegal and promoting the
value of recognised International and European specifications. Without
the single, guaranteed, industry-wide set of standards specifications,
guaranteed by the X/Open brand, compliance with this requirement would
be difficult, costly and time-consuming.
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