Business Weekly: mature open-source code

Just 18 months ago, John Roberts, Clint Oram, and Jacob Taylor decided to resign from their job at the CRM software company epiphany. These three software developers try to develop an open-based Source code CRM software system. They took only three months to complete the development of the software system, and it took only one month to get the first round of risk financing. One year later, sugarcrm, the three software personnel, presented 0.32 million sets of software systems and received a second round of risk financing of $7.75 million. -- Newszw_hzh_end -->

Venture capital companies generally do not favor the use of complimentary software business models, but why is sugarcrm alone? John Roberts, CEO of the company, unveiled the answer: Open SourceCodeThe next trend of the campaign is to enter the commercial software market, and we are at the center of this trend. Open source code companies that have previously obtained venture capital are engaged in infrastructure software development, but now we have broken this game rule.

Open source code is gaining momentum for the next wave. Companies, investors, and many analysts are confident in the open-source commercial software market, and the hundreds of millions of dollars of software market is about to be like a volcanic eruption.

Over the past 18 months, venture capital has invested nearly $0.4 billion in a total of 50 source code software companies and is expected to invest more in the coming days. Compared with the non-open source software market, this investment may be nothing, but it is certain that these open source software companies will have enough funds to run, because they do not want to recruit too many sales staff and engineers, open source codeCommunityWill help them.

Investors have funded a series of emerging open-source enterprises from wide commercial applications such as monitoring business intelligence software systems for enterprise operation to professional commercial applications suchHospitalComputer system. Investors said any open-source software company could change the commercial application software market monopolized by SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle. The software systems that enterprise users used to purchase with huge amounts of money can now be freely downloaded to open-source products with similar functions through the Internet for free.Operating SystemOr application software, without having to prepare a high budget for it. Because these products are open-source, you can modify and customize the software code based on your needs.

Undoubtedly, an open source code ecosystem is emerging: open source code is no longer limited to basic software products such as operating systems. As more open source companies enter the application software market, the open source code path will become wider and wider, which will stimulate the emergence of more open source software service companies.

Spikesource and sourcelabs are two consulting companies that provide open-source project testing and evaluation services for enterprise users. They provide enterprise users with suggestions on how to deploy open-source software, provide necessary technical support. In order to avoid unnecessary legal disputes, blackduck is such a company that provides legal consulting services for open-source software, it helps enterprise users who download open source code to avoid unnecessary legal disputes.

The Linux operating system launched in 1991 has triggered the first wave of open source software, the operating system, developed by thousands of volunteers, has a share of $49 billion in the $4.2 billion server market and is expected to grow at least 15% per year in the next five years.

In the web browser market, open source code browser software Firefox has occupied 8% of the market. Although this is still not comparable to Microsoft's Internet Explorer 87 share, Firefox's share is growing steadily, and for the first time, ie's market share is reduced to less than 90%, let Microsoft bow its head.

The infrastructure software market has also set off an Open Source boom. MySQL began to challenge Oracle's database business, And JBoss began to compete with Bea and IBM on the application server market. Although most of these infrastructure software companies are small private companies so far, their revenue is growing by two or three times a year.

What's even more impressive is that most of these companies have achieved profitability, and low-cost open-source businesses are undoubtedly the key to making profits. Analysts expect the profit of MySQL to reach $40 million this year.

The CEO of rightnow Technology said that we are a major customer of MySQL. The adoption of open source software systems has cut us considerable costs, currently, IT spending has been reduced from 40% of previous revenue to 6% of current spending.

The open source software market is developing attractive charm. Many venture capitalists are so eager to find the next barrel of gold in the open source code market that they have expressed their willingness to cooperate with source code projects on their websites, trying to find any prosperous software field.

At the same time, the mood of entrepreneurs is equally urgent. Open source gives these entrepreneurs the opportunity to compete with giants such as Microsoft. After sevin Rosen invested in xensource, an emerging open-source software company, more than 30 entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs came to this investment institution and elaborated on their idea of starting a business based on the open-source model.

The partner of the investment institution said the company has not yet funded a majority of entrepreneurs. Although more and more venture capital are pouring into the open source software market, this market has not had enough growth opportunities so far.

Of course, it is hard to say whether these open-source software companies can grow smoothly. Most companies still offer their products over the Internet, and then earn revenue through training, maintenance, and support services. However, the ability to earn sustained income is a challenge. Although open source software companies' products are downloaded for hundreds of thousands of times, in fact, only two users generate an average revenue. Analysts warn that, after all, products of every open-source software company can be easily copied by other companies. In addition, more and more enterprise users are trying open-source software because of the free price.

However, the open-source code model has its own advantages. The Internet and open-source communities allow these companies to spend less time on sales and organization management, they do not want to hire experienced but well-paid sales staff or spend time dealing with CIOs of enterprise users, all these open-source companies do is to put code on the Internet.

Due to the low cost, many open source code companies do not need venture capital intervention at all. digium and Compiere, two of the oldest and most successful open source application software companies, have never made any financing, and they do not need. They may not grow to an annual revenue of 1 billion US dollars, but they are already blank in the open source market.

Compiere is mainly engaged in open-source ERP software development, and the development of this software system is extremely challenging, because the ERP software system is almost the core of the enterprise's operation, from the company's financial, human resources to manufacturing are all within the ERP system planning. Since the company launched the ERP software system in 199, it has downloaded 0.9 million times and found a way out in the small and medium enterprise user market.