business

Our Terms of Business

These terms of business set out the basis on which Sirius will undertake work for the Customer.

Open Source in Business

The open-source model has a lot to offer the business world. It's a way to build open standards as actual software, rather than paper documents. It's a way that many companies and individuals can collaborate on a product that none of them could achieve alone. It's the rapid bug-fixes and the changes that the user asks for, done to the user's own schedule.

Open Source

Founded in 1998, Sirius Corporation is the leader in enterprise open source and is one of the most recognised brands in open source systems integration.

We serve global enterprises with technology and services made possible by the open source model. But what is Open Source software, why should you use it, how's it used by different sectors and where do we come in?

What vendors really mean by 'open source'

When you say 'open source', you may be clear about what you mean. However, others are twisting the term for their own ends, says open-source expert Mark Taylor.

Like me, you've probably read articles on how free software, or open source, is going to thrive in 2009, and how businesses everywhere are going to survive the recession by migrating to it.

Linux provides affordable alternative for Honda car dealership

It's no secret that the UK's car industry is suffering badly in the economic downturn. Whilst giant US car manufacturers face bankrupcy and the UK government considers providing emergency credit to  Jaguar-Landrover, other industry players must look at innovative solutions to remain competitive.

Nestling in the heart of Surrey, Trident Honda first considered Open Source software when they were faced with an eye-watering £75,000 to 'update' their existing Citrix MetaFrame infrastructure.

Interview with Bernard Golden

<>Bernard Golden is a renowned expert on open source software and author of the excellent "Open Source in the Enterprise" recently published by O'Reilly. We caught up with him at the HP Finanical Services industry Open Source Advisory Council to ask him how Open Source is changing the way Enterprises use software.

Chrome-plated Change Management

I have become increasingly interested in what can only be described as the Windows XP effect. My previous two posts focussed on the idea that XP is, in the user's mind, the end of the upgrade journey and that even mighty Microsoft is struggling to budge them away from XP onto bigger and 'better' things.

I assert, and would expect little dissention, that change away from XP (voluntary change that is) wherein most users reside deep in their comfort zone, would need a really powerful driver. For arch conservative schools and public sector workplaces it will have to be a very good reason indeed.

Open Source in an economic downturn

We are in an economic downturn, perhaps even a full-blown recession. Any doubts I had about that were removed by two related, recent phenomena.

The first is that whenever I walk down a high street I see almost every single retailer involved in near permanent 'sales'. Looking into the figures confirms the picture - sales on the high street have fallen for four of the past five months. The second is that high street retailers are now deep in conversations with Open Source companies. Some, like Specsavers, are so far into migrating to Open Source that they are essentially running on it end-to-end. Retail's economic challenges will soon be everyone's.

Open for Business Series : Open Source in Business

Welcome to the first episode of "Open for Business", a regular column intended to examine Free Software/Open Source from a Business perspective, and to do this in plain English. In fact this should probably be OfB 'the next generation' as the column is returning to Linux User and Developer after an absence of a few years. Time has treated the business of Open Source very well indeed, and I can happily report that we have never been stronger in the enterprise, and that companies everywhere, UK and abroad, are enthusiastically migrating to Free Software as we speak.

Is Becta loosening Microsoft's grip on UK schools?

Becta's massive school database interoperability project (SIF) will create huge opportunities for Open Source software companies. Hitherto, competition in the school's database market has been minimal due to schools being locked-in to proprietary, non-interoperable software normally based on Microsoft MS-SQL.