ILM Systems Introduction

 

ILM Systems Ltd. was established August 2009 in Trinidad and Tobago as the premier ICT Services company serving the North American and Caribbean regions. We bring a strong focus on Mature, Enterprise Ready, Open Source solutions. Our solutions are widely adopted globally and have the backing of a strong, well-established corporate support structure. Some examples of the types of systems and solutions we work with are RedHat (http://www.redhat.com), JBoss (http://www.jboss.com) and the Exo Platform (http://www.exoplatform.com).

 

 

So why Open Source?

The key addendum to this question is ”at this point in time”. The open source movement officially started in the late 1990”s with the advent of the Open Source Initiative (http://www.opensource.org). This movement was immediately adopted and advanced by the efforts of RedHat, JBoss (now a part of RedHat), the Apache Group, Netscape and Sun Microsystems (now a part of Oracle). Additionally, the standardization of the Information Technology industry and specifications helped catapult open source into the mainstream arena of solutions. During the last fifteen years, open source systems and components have evolved considerably. Different models of services and support have become the norm, like community based, open bug lists and service level agreements. Nowadays, most companies, knowingly or unknowingly, utilize open source components in some capacity from mission-critical systems to ad hoc support systems.

 

What are the advantages of Open Source?
The key advantages to open source are:

 

  • No Vendor Lock-In: IT managers in organizations face constant frustration when dealing with vendor ”lock-ins”. Lack of portability, expensive license fees and inability to customize software are some of the other disadvantages. Using open source software gives you more freedom and you can effectively address all these disadvantages.
  • High-quality software: The open source community process yields a higher quality of software. Since everyone can read your code, by natural consensus, another”s code is always optimized by the entire community. Security holes and bugs are fixed or identified early due to the sheer number of programmers involved. The source code is also readily available for customization.
  • Simple license management: When you use open source software, you would no longer need to worry about licenses. Open source software enables you to install it several times and also use it from any location. You will be free from monitoring, tracking or counting license compliance.
  • Lower software costs: Using open source software can help you minimize your expenses. You can save on licensing fees and maintenance fees. The only expenses that you would encounter would be expenditure for documentation, media and support.
  • Abundant support: You will get ample support when you use open source software. Open source support is mostly freely available and can be easily accessed through online communities. There are also many software companies that provide free online help and also varied levels of paid support. Most organization who create open source software solutions also provide maintenance and support.