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The character of a company -- the stamp it puts on its products, services and the marketplace -- is shaped and defined over time. It evolves. It deepens. It is expressed in an ever-changing corporate culture, in transformational strategies, and in new and compelling offerings for customers3. Organisations have rapidly changed throughout the course of history in the modern era of technology. These changes are generally brought about by internal and external forces, both are highly influential and can impact the way organisations run their business and how they market their products. Perhaps one of the most significant changes which have occurred recently is those linked with information technology. The need for information via technology has increased greatly over the last 20 years or so, and certain corporate businesses have capitalised on consumers and organizations needs for information systems4. Other changes, both external and internal that affect Information systems within organizations are changes introduced by Government policy; Governments can conduct research to investigate areas where there is a need for change, eg. Data Privacy, freedom of information, learning technologies and copyright, they can enforce such changes by implementing new legislation; Community attitudes and values are also formally expressed in laws, for example, the freedom of information legislation can influence the way information is communicated throughout the organization; Availability and cost of equipment have also dramatically changed throughout this modern era, as the price of computer hardware has decreased and the availability of such components has greatly increased1. All in all, the changes in information system, have affected not only the way organizations conduct their businesses but have influenced the manner in which consumers, students, families go about their daily lives. This essay however will not focus directly on the major changes but rather will investigate and explore the way open source companies and free software groups have dramatically changed the way global IT firms and computer users use technology5. The term “open source” can be interpreted in many ways, one good translation would be “open technology” or something that would enable technically skilled people to see exactly how this piece of software / information system works2. Furthermore, this technology can be modified, duplicated, extracted into various other forms to suit the users needs. For example, if and open source software group produces a free open-source operating system (something similar to Windows) to be downloaded off the internet without a price tag, users from around the world can obtain a copy, install it and fix problems inherent in the current version and be able to add/customise elements into this piece of software by changing the “source code”.
Approximate Word count = 1500
Approximate Pages = 6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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