Those of us with gray hair remember when mainstream companies
viewed open source software with extreme skepticism--that is, until
it became apparent that the Internet backbone was running reliably
on OSS. Now attention is turning to open source hardware.
Open source hardware? Really?
Really.
If you've been following the Maker Movement, you're already in the
loop. Just as many open source iterations and eyes changed the face
of software, so it will go with hardware. Want to build a USB
battery charger out of a mint container and other widely available
components? Limor Fried (aka Lady Ada) to the rescue, with her
"minty boost" USB charger.
Surely this movement is for hobbyists only, right? You don't want
to fork out USD 50 for a USB battery charger, so you fork out USD
20 for the kit and work on it with your buddies over the
weekend.
Well, there's a larger world out there. Like open source software,
open source hardware started among hobbyists and will make its way
into the corporation.
I chatted recently with Trevor Good, co-chair of this week's
Hardware Innovation Workshop, about several companies that are
making money with open source hardware, including SparkFun
Electronics and Fried's Adafruit Industries.
When you manufacture something based on open source, you don't make
money on the intellectual property. Open source hardware isn't a
business model, says SparkFun CEO Nathan Seidle; it's a business
driver. It's about "enabling companies to move faster and be more
pliable than ever," he says. If that's not a familiar battle cry to
business and IT leaders, I don't know what is.
IT exists to provide technology services to advance business goals.
If your business creates kiosks, vending machines, vehicles, or
other types of consumer hardware, my money is on IT contributing
massively to cutting costs and increasing speed of deployment.
Maybe that means IT organizations becoming aware of open source
designs and assisting product engineering and manufacturing with
integration into real-time business systems. Maybe it means working
with a subcontractor. Open source hardware won't be good for
everything, but it will be fantastic for certain things.
Except, organizations that don't have massive hardware prototyping
facilities can't play in this space, right?
Wrong.
In the same way that you can join a health club and reap the
personal benefits without buying USD 100,000 worth of weight
machines, you can also join a rapid prototyping club. TechShop, for
example, offers many fabrication options, including "milling
machines and lathes, welding stations and a CNC plasma cutter,
sheet metal working equipment, drill presses and band saws,
industrial sewing machines, hand tools, plastic and wood working
equipment including a 4' x 8' ShopBot CNC router, electronics
design and fabrication facilities, Epilog laser cutters, tubing and
metal bending machines, a Dimension SST 3-D printer, electrical
supplies and tools."
The value of the open source hardware movement hasn't gone
unnoticed by Ford Motor Co., which offers TechShop memberships to
employees. The Open XC platform that lets developers create phone
apps to interact with Ford vehicles is based on Bug Labs, an open
source hardware platform.
Open source hardware isn't just the purview of engineers in product
development labs. It can apply just as much to IT pros.
Your peer at SparkFun, IT director Chris Clark, summed it up well
in a recent email conversation: "All the money we were saving by
not investing thousands in expensive proprietary software and
systems for our infrastructure could be funneled into hiring better
people to build that infrastructure for us using open source
platforms and combining open source utilities to not only do the
job but do it in a heavily customized way that gave us the
flexibility we needed." As open source software and hardware start
to converge, expect the hardware for things like telemetry, credit
card reading, and vending--perhaps even network routing--to become
much less expensive and proprietary.
Open source hardware becomes more attractive to CIOs as hardware
platforms become more closed, as walled gardens spring up on all
kinds of platforms, and as questions about who really owns the
hardware and whether it's legal to jailbreak or repurpose hardware
arise.
But open source hardware, like open source software, is going to
help only those CIOs who have an open mind.
Source:
InformationWeek USA