I had a funny conversation with a fellow presenter while at the conference. He and I got to talking and I shared with him my work with open source. He then told me that his company (large financial services company) had been getting ready to create a large portal and did a bakeoff between IBM, Plumtree (BEA), a couple of other commercial portal products, and Liferay, a well-known open source portal (see a recent review of Liferay in InfoWorld).He then said, “Our folks found Liferay to be easier to install, easier to configure and implement, and easier to run.”Here’s the kicker — he then said “Of course, we would never use it.” (This was said more as an observation about the company’s practices rather than his personal choice). The tone of his observation was one typically associated with matters of faith. It was clear that the corporate decision wasn’t a case of not enough facts to support going with Liferay; facts were irrelevant to the decision. Open source just wasn’t good enough for this organization, end of story.I couldn’t help but be reminded of an analogous belief emanating from Detroit in the 70’s: “Americans will never drive Japanese cars. They’re too small and junky.” History isn’t kind to organizations so certain about the way the world works that they don’t actively seek innovative solutions despite their lack of mainstream acceptance. The Japanese seem to have done pretty well in the auto biz; meanwhile Detroit is mired in endless restructurings, blameshifting to the US healthcare system, and an inability to consistently build cars that appeal to consumers. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe