Open vs. Closed

An ongoing debate exists over the concepts of closed (aka proprietary) versus open source software.  Blue Dot’s position is that there’s room for both, and the interesting ways in which organizations use and create both open and closed software leads to greater competition and better products in the market place.  Blue Dot builds entirely on the MS technology stack - which is closed source - but frequently uses a variety of open source libraries throughout the development of a Mobile Worforce Management solution. In fact, Blue Dot’s own libraries include a range of open source offerings. 

In general, we feel that our mission in the industry is one of leading innovation through the use of both open and closed software and by implementing compelling enterprise mobile solutions that customers can grow and extend on their own. In light of these goals, our platform, libraries, and tools that we’ve created in house to fill the gaps in Windows and Windows Mobile software development are closed (they remain the property of Blue Dot) but are made available as source code, along with the source code for any open source libraries and the source code of the specific Mobile Workforce Management solution(s) that we create for a customer.   All of the source code that is provided to a customer is available to be used by that customer within the constraints of the associated source code license agreements.  Project source code specific to a customer solution is never shared with any other Blue Dot customer or business partner.   We believe that this approach provides the maximum flexibility to us and our customers without compromising our technical advantage and leadership in the marketplace.

A few interesting things to note about the evolution of Microsoft’s thinking about open source: While .NET remains the property of Microsoft, they have recently allowed debugging directly into the source code of the framework via Visual Studio. Microsoft has also started sponsoring and creating a variety of communities like codeplex.com that are specifically targeted at developing and sharing free software on the Microsoft platform.