A growing contingent of enterprise software vendors now support Free and open source software. Though the concept of Free software may extend (in a variety of ways) further back in time, it formally began when the Free Software Foundation (FSF) formed in 1985. One of the most well-known results is the operating system known as Linux (often referred to as GNU/Linux), which was born in 1991. Another widely-used open source operating system is FreeBSD, which was born in 1993 (1979 if one were to trace its ancestors). Finally, an organization called the Open Source Initiative (OSI) began in 1998. These dates highlight the persistence of several significant organizations and projects, though there are other high-profile names that have been and continue to be integral parts in developing the FOSS movements.
The point is that the FOSS community has had time to learn from its mistakes and it has matured its practice. It is no longer a question of will open source software be adopted—it's already in widespread use by businesses and government organizations, at least in aspects such as server operating system and database, and now there are a number of communities creating specialized open source enterprise solutions. Next, let's explore the growth of demand for enterprise products that are based on open source platforms.
There are at least two shifts gaining ground in the software industry fueled by FOSS. The first shift reveals a notion, which seems to be a favourite lately for those that would like to call attention to FOSS successes. This notion stresses that anyone grading success just by peering into the desktop application market is missing the significant new area in the industry, namely Internet-based applications. Articles on the topic always cite Google and Amazon as the stars of "getting-it" because these companies' products are rooted in open source software and methodologies, and they prove those roots help them outperform their competitors. The application these companies provide is basically a trustworthy, easy-to-use, and pervasive point of access to an incredibly complex and vast pool of information, goods, and services; and they do it for an extremely diverse and massive user base—anyone accessing the Internet.
The second shift is the perspective from which software is developed and distributed. Practitioners and users of FOSS view their software more as the basis for a service-oriented relationship. That is to say, communication between the various roles (users, VARs, consultants, vendors, developers, etc.) is necessary for determining and developing the requirements, flaws, and direction of the software. At first glance this might not appear very different from a closed-source software vendor, which certainly must listen to its users' demands in order to be successful. But it is different because in the open source case, the features of the software may literally be developed by a party other than the one that originally provided the software and that development may actually be incorporated into the original source of the software itself. This means that if, for example, a company needs something from its open source software, which is not supported it can then develop or sponsor development for that functionality in the product. The functionality can further the growth of the product as whole. Thus the software's entire user base can benefit and the primary development team of the software may not have to devote as much in the way of resources to creating new functionality on its own. Companies sponsor such development because they have the opportunity to get what they need at a lower cost, and via an efficient process. This development process signals a shift in how the software industry does business.
Both shifts are frequent cause for debate. The proprietary religion practiced by many software vendors often seems at odds to the spreading atheism of open source. This is changing however, and many of the most faithful (Microsoft) even experiment with bits of open source. Why should the situation change? Even if pragmatic arguments for open source don't feel convincing (I'll pose some of these for consideration in the second part of the article), look at the demand trends from a global base of enterprise software customers.
Any vendor that does not take into consideration the type of demand fomented at the forges of FOSS communities is missing opportunities.
How do I know? Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) publishes The TEC "Q" Report, which tracks and reports end user (enterprise software decision makers) demand trends every quarter. Reviewing information from the report in the graphs below, we can gain insight on some open source demand trends.
@2004 Copyright Technology Evaluation Centers Inc.
Based on the server operating system (OS) demand graph above it is hardly news that the proprietary Microsoft Windows OS is the market leader. Over the course of 2004, demand seems to have had a very slight decrease for both Windows and Linux. It is interesting to see however, that both operating systems saw demand ultimately rise in the year for Q3 2004 compared to Q3 2003. Specifically, Linux demand in Q3 2003 made up 9.5% of TEC's global total, while in Q3 2004 it made up 10.8%. The other OS leader, Unix, visibly decreased in demand, both as a trend for 2004 and in a comparison of Q3 2003 to Q3 2004. If one considers again that Linux was born in 1991, its share of the demand pool, which is now close to that of the venerable Unix, is impressive.
Server operating system is one important area to track demand, another is database platform. In 2004, database platform demand has gone through a more interesting change than server operating systems. In particular, FOSS communities are beginning to present a grave challenge to the proprietary likes of Microsoft and Oracle.
@2004 Copyright Technology Evaluation Centers Inc.
The database platform demand graph above shows that the open source MySQL saw its demand increase in Q3 2004 compared to Q3 2003 and continued to increase quarter by quarter for 2004. The same can be said, though to a lesser degree, of the open source PostgreSQL database. Demand for MySQL made up 2.4% of the global total in Q3 2003 and increased to 8.7% in Q3 2004. Demand for PostgreSQL came in at 1.6% in Q3 2003 and increased to 2.1% in Q3 2004. On the other hand, both Microsoft and Oracle have been stuck in a trend of declining demand quarter after quarter for the year and have even dropped below the demand levels they enjoyed in Q3 2003.
Over 59% of the approximately 5,000 global decision maker inquiries that TEC analyzed came from companies with annual revenues of less than 5 million up to 200 million. This means that a majority of these inquiries come from what is commonly known as the small and medium enterprise (SME) market. This market is often targeted (though not exclusively) by open source enterprise software providers. Often, vendors basing products on open source platforms can make strong justifications for their solutions to SMEs based on qualities like affordability (something vendors selling on proprietary platforms may not be able to compete against).
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