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For customers who need a great deal of customization done to their business intelligence software, open source may be the answer. There are a few ways that they can ensure that a new version of the software will not affect the customization that they applied to their product.
Become Involved in the Open Source Community – Once a company becomes involved in the community they will have more input into whether or not the changes that they made to the original source code are included in a new version. This is, of course, assuming that they released the code that they created when they customized their project into the community. Ways to get involved in the community include participating in forums, not just asking questions, but providing answers as well; adding to a community’s to-do list; and completing one of the tasks on the to-do list.
Use Internal Resources to Build the Appropriate Applications – With access to the source code, a company can use their internal IT resources to enhance their business intelligence software. During this process, it would be important to document the changes made and how they were written so that if the company decided to keep its changes internal, then they could recreate the applications when a new version of the software was release. This could prove to be time consuming, so unless the applications that are developed in house are crucial to the competitiveness of a company, it is usually more prudent to share the new code with the community once it is developed, so that it is carried over to the new version without any hassle.
Hiring an Outside Consulting Firm or Contacting the Parent Company – For companies who need business intelligence software, but don’t have a strong IT team, hiring an outside consulting firm or contacting the parent company for additional applications is usually the best course of action. Although this option will cost the company more than the first two options, it usually costs far less than paying the licensing fees on commercial software. The downside to this option is that it is rare for these applications to make their way into a new version of the source code, but if the application is useful enough there is a chance that the parent company may make the code public as well.
Open source BI is usually as easy as or even easier than most commercial software to customize. Depending on internal resources, a company can make their own changes, petition the open source community for changes, hire a developer, or do all three depending on the situation.
