In a way, I’m not surprised to hear that Obama is considering leveraging open source technology to save money. He’s already demonstrated an uncanny ability to leverage the net to reach out to millions. I always thought it would take government at least ten years before embracing the benefits of open source technology. After all, it’s typically the CXOs that are the last ones to change anything, then government brings up the rear. Instead of working in a world dominated by Microsoft with all the associated expenses, it’s now possible to run a business (or government) effectively with open source applications. Imagine the amount of taxpayer money that could be saved if the government started using Open Office (docs and spreadsheets) and Thunderbird (email). Free word processing, free email hosting, free calendaring, etc. Take the number of federal employees and multiply by 200 and that’s roughly how many dollars per year would be saved in IT costs (Microsoft updates, maintenance, licensing fees, etc).

Some might ask, “But what about functionality? Isn’t Microsoft Word better?” The answer is clearly “yes” with a follow up of “but who cares.”
In an interview in the Wall Street Journal, Peter Whatnell supported the open source movement as being a viable alternative to expensive Microsoft products. The article reads,

WSJ: You’ve said that you would consider moving to a cheaper alternative such as Google’s email system if you could get 90% of the functionality for 10% of the cost. Why?

MR. WHATNELL: It is not such an unreasonable assertion to make if you talk to people about the products they use and how much they use them. Most people use spreadsheets and word processing and PowerPoint. But most people just scratch the surface of what is available in these applications. When it comes to spreadsheets, they use addition, subtraction and maybe long division. The number of people who use functions and other complicated features is a much smaller part of the population.

So for the power users, give them the Microsoft suite. But for everyone else, it’s not really necessary. Just the fact that Obama is even asking about open source is impressive and explains why Microsoft is so desperately trying to move their applications to the internet.

So what does this have to do with the practice of law? First, when there’s an opportunity to cut fixed costs, it changes every profession. Second, in my opinion, with the barriers to entry being lowered each day, lawyers across the globe will start competing not based on their technology advantages, but based on the quality of their ideas and services.

Tags: google apps, microsoft, obama, technology