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OEM Companies going Open Source way

OEM is short for Original Equipment Manufacturers. OEM companies make their products in large volumes and generally sell them to bigger companies who add value to it by incorporating it in a bigger product or just improving the overall feel of the product. However, sometimes, the bigger company is called the OEM and the smaller company is just called the ‘provider’.

To make the explanation clear, let us take an example: suppose there is a company ‘Centaur Music’. It creates cutting edge sound cards. Now, a global leader in the music industry, ‘Globo Musicals’ has started a new venture. They want to enter the lucrative DVD-player market. So, they enter into an agreement where Centaur will provide them the sound cards which they will use in their DVD-players. So this is how OEM companies function.

The concept of OEM isn’t limited to hardware. Actually, the concept originally began with hardware but has been extended significantly and is not just used for physical goods anymore.

A case in support of this view is Intel’s latest ambition. It has a significant portion of the GPU market, roughly about 40%. Now, it aims to use Open Source to develop drivers for its GPU’s which will give it a significant advantage over its traditional rivals. By participating in the Open Source revolutions, Intel shows how proper adaptation to changes can lead to the betterment of all. And in doing so, they have gained the favor of the Open Source industry and individuals related to it. However, nVidia and ATI have decided to play the waiting game, because they do not want to reveal what goes into the making of their GPU’s.

83,000 Dell users posted a request on the computer giant’s forum, Dell IdeaStorm, to the company to ship computers preloaded with the Linux OS. Dell said that it had ‘taken notice’ of the requests, but is yet to comply with the requests. It also is playing the waiting game like nVidia and ATI. It said that it ‘investigating’ and ‘consulting’ the different possibilities and what impact they are going to have. This is a very encouraging sign for all the people associated with the Open Source movement. The fact that people know about and understand the movement is exemplified in the request made to Dell stating that they wanted Open Office along with MS Office in their PC’s.

So you see, the basic essence of open source can be applied to every sphere of life, no matter how diverse or similar to open source codes.

Many more examples can be listed out here. Like Intel, which earlier wasn’t really making very good video chipsets, now enters the graphics market with several good chipsets such as the Intel X3000. Intel plans to go the Open Source way by open sourcing all the drivers so that its chipsets work well in almost every software platform. Intel sees this as a killer feature and thus advertises its products keeping this mind.
Another example would include Sony, a multi-national electronics giant and also the creators of the revolutionary gaming console, the PlayStation3 (PS3). The PS3 runs on Yellow Dog Linux, an open source distribution of linux which would allow the hardware potential of the PS3 to reach the next level. This feature of the PS3 sets it apart from other consoles and hence it becomes more than just a multimedia box, it becomes a true customizable linux workstation.

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