If you are reading this, chances are you already know the advantages of open source. Open source is free, benefits from a community of contributors, it's well tested, the list of benefits is long... right?

Well, I agree. It's hard to believe that someone would choose anything but apache to run a web server. But software runs in a lot of different places, different industries and cultures. In the world of billing, we are about 15 years behind the industry standard, as far as open source adoption goes. The other day I had in my hands an issue of a billing magazine (Billing & OSS World, I think is its name). They had an article on open source and it was half funny, half depressing. Open source was synonym of Linux, that's all. Like there is nothing else in the open source world but Linux.

In about two months, jbilling will be launching a new major release that will include a package of components that address es the needs of telecommunication companies. This product will be called 'jbilling Telco'. We have daily inquiries to our sales people about jbilling for telcos, so there is great demand.

Is the telecommunications sector ready for open source? Are they ready for open source in a mission critical role such as billing? We will see. Jbilling is getting to the frontier of open source with jbilling Telco.

We know there is demand, but there is plenty of software (beside Linux), that those companies could use now. How about RDBMS? There are great open source options. Not just great products, but with great companies behind. Think about MySQL, run and tested by millions around the world and backed by a solid company for services. CRM?, Business Intelligence? Plenty of mature solid products.

I know personally of a big telco in British Columbia that is in the process of developing their own billing system, running on top of a lot of commercial proprietary close sourced software. They are years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. There is a culture of conservatism and resistance to (logical) change in some big telecommunications companies. Open source will get there, I am happy that jbilling Telco will be one step towards that goal.

Emiliano Conde
Lead Developer
emiliano@jbilling.com
jbilling