Study Finds "Free Open Source Software Is Costing Vendors $60 Billion"
I am trying to get my hands on this new report from the Standish Group that says that open source is decimating the traditional software market.
Open Source software is raising havoc throughout the software market. It is the ultimate in disruptive technology, and while to it is only 6% of estimated trillion dollars IT budgeted annually, it represents a real loss of $60 billion in annual revenues to software companies," said Jim Johnson, Chairman, The Standish Group International, Boston, MA
If the $60 billion is true (and I would assume based on Standish's five years of research it is) then we have been dramatically underestimating the impact open source is having on the traditional vendors. We've known there is a effect, and now we finally have some numbers (and $60 billion is a whopper.)
MySQL Marten Mickos has often spoken of "taking a $10 billion market and making it a $3 billion market." If you consider that open source has taken out $60 billion of traditional software revenues there will be a bloodletting in the proprietary world soon enough.
It's a great time to be an open source company.
Dave Rosenberg is currently working on a new stealth start-up based in San Francisco. He is Co-founder of MuleSource, an open source integration and infrastructure software company and is a recognized thought-leader in open source software and service-oriented architecture. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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With proprietary software, you pay and you get served. It has worked very well until recently. Some big companies prefer to engage in crushing the competition by all means, preventing illegal copying and getting over 90% of the market and they do not care much what their customers need.
With open software (or free software or whichever) you get the software for nothing and you pay with your own time. At least this has been my experience with Linux software. Some companies can save a lot of money if they build up internal expertise. Plus you get much more choice and freedom. This is becoming more and more important due to the monopolist trends in proprietary software.
So with open software, some people will be loosing their jobs, but I think that at the bottom line, all of us will profit.
Business Customers $60 Billion", but I guess negative headlines more
catchy. To me this research can be spun either way, good or bad. As for
the "loses" for the vendors, maybe they should add a department that
provides support for these free open source software, and make money off
that. It's really a matter of shifting the revenue from one source to
another. Jobs lost in one area are gained in another. Anyway I think the
world economy is large enough for both proprietary and open source,
there will always be be customers for both.
Exactly. I agree. It is just a matter of what people prefer. What you gain at one place you loose at another. Anyway, by having both proprietary and open software you gain more choice. So far so good. But I am worried about some long-term trends. Have a look at this:
http://www.articleonramp.com/Article.cfm?ID=24564
Will Linux die in 2018?
By Simone Brunozzi.
According to Simone, everything which has been said here will become irrelevant by 2018. Because by that time you will not be able to buy a computing device with which you can do anything you want. Regardless of the existence or nonexistence of open software. Due to the law restrictions and the combined power of Hollywood, music and media industry etc. There will be no open hardware. Restrictions will be built into firmware. You may not even be allowed to build such a free device without restrictions by yourself. According to law.
It seems nobody can accurately quantify the time costs of either open source or proprietary software. Therefore, these types of reports are suspect, unless a company can provide year to year budgetary data.
I wonder how well written the report is? i suppose the ultimate test would be if it is written so poorly that someone is actually willing to do the work themselves, releasing it for free, just so they can get a report that actually satisfies their needs. I mean... how bad is your product when someone would rather build from scratch, for free, than use it?
Maybe if proprietary software companies had listened to their users, created stable products with the users people wanted and priced them within reason, oh, say... starting 10 to 15 years ago things would have never progressed this way.
Also... who wants to bet... they are estimating how much OSS is in use and making the assumption that each bit of it represents a piece of expensive software that someone would have purchased had they not had the option to use a better, free program. As if every piece of software in use is one that couldn't be done without. I'd like to know, though not enough to pay $1000.