Hardware Is Now Open (sourced) For Business 42
ptorrone writes "CNBC has an interesting article about the growing trend of hardware companies going open-source. 'The open-source hardware movement is migrating from the garage to the marketplace. Companies that follow an open-source philosophy make their physical designs and software code available to the public. By doing so, these companies engage a wave of makers, hobbyists and designers who don't just want to buy products, but have a hand in developing them.'"
Re:Nothing really new here ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. Many years ago, I was trying to fix a TV from the 70s. Full schematic glued to the inside of the set.
And to a certain extent, hardware has always been open source anyway. A motivated engineer can remove and identify components one by one and follow the wire traces on the circuit board. It's easier to reverse engineer a circuit board than a piece of software. Still, it's a lot easier if they give you the schematic up front. So I'd like to give a big shout out to SparkFun (www.sparkfun.com) electronics, who have made my life a lot easier.
This is about products, not components (Score:4, Interesting)
What's new here is the trend. Companies saw the RepRap project spawn a bunch of companies with a lot of compatibility from the start. Non-RepRap companies are seeing this as a threat to the investment they made using traditional methods (closed design, proprietary supplies and software).
Business people understand the IBM PC clone model. You had a market leader that everyone copied. The old-school thinking was they failed to protect their intellectual property, and lost market share to competitors who copied their design. In other words, they believe IBM could have kept nearly all the marked had they done a better job of keeping it closed, and bought Microsoft while they could.
RepRap and projects like it have upended that thinking. Arduino is seen as a component, not a product, by these people. But 3D printing is getting a lot of press, and business people are starting to take notice. When you create a 10 year plan, and can achieve a huge reduction in R&D spending, along with a reduction of risk, they take notice.
One of the concerns is the believe the a mature market only has room for two main competitors. That means you have a lot of losers. An open source machine makes it much more likely that your company will end up as one of the two majors, and that is a huge reduction of risk. This is becoming a hot topic among many executives. Many are somewhat scared and unsure what to do - if anything.