Former CEO of Montgomery Ward praises use of Open Source Software

[mandy]

Bernie Brennan, formerly the CEO of retailer Montgomery Ward, confesses he didn't know much about open source software before he took over as chairman of the board at Tomax and eFashion Solutions. Both of these companies rely heavily on Linux, on their own shop floors and those of their customers. Now that Brennan has learned about the advantages of open source, he says he'd never invest in a company that didn't use it...

Brennan says that the biggest benefit of open source software is that retailers can pick and choose what they need, thereby using 100% of the application and paying only for what is useful. "It's a major competitive advantage. If you use [open source] effectively, it provides the kind of customization that just doesn't come with version 1.0 through version 5.0 of [proprietary] solutions."

Another advantage of open source, Brennan says, is that it can be coded in such a way as to allow non-developers to update it. "With eFashion Solutions, we're able to use the open source architecture to change customer offers on a daily basis. We can change the protocol of the product, and filter customer views based on what they've previously purchased -- and we can literally do those screens through content management instead of having to have them coded by a developer. We can go in now and look at our rate of sales, best sellers, inventory levels -- this is a phenomenal example of what open source can do." ..

full article: http://www.itmanagersjournal.com/feature/21233