Peter Levine. The open source business model is wrong
You have already read the headline and prepared the "tomatoes", because the ax of the holy war has been excavated, but wait a few minutes. Let's take a look at the thoughts of a fairly authoritative inhabitant of Silicon Valley, and then we can discuss this topic.
Peter Levin (Peter Levine), a partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who supported Facebook, Skype, Twitter, Box and many others. In his opinion , the usual business model of an open source software company is unpromising. In this case, the receipt of income for maintenance, support and guarantees for the application, which is in free access. Judging by all the indicators, "such a business simply cannot generate sufficient income . " Explaining his words, Levin clarifies that such companies have the problem of investing in innovation, which makes them dependent on the open source community.
What is the problem, because today the model of development of open source systems has already proved its applicability and viability?
')
Without adequate funding, companies cannot offer a significant differentiation of their products. As a result, a significant portion of potential customers is lost. So companies fall into a vicious circle when one pulls the other along. The presence of open source software, in some ways, provides competition to the market, forcing proprietary companies to offer reasonable prices for products, but ...
The problem is exacerbated when you consider that open-sourced products with partial monetization must compete with both proprietary and similarly open companies. We also add the lack of opportunity to spend money on marketing and sales, as budgets of competitors with proprietary products can afford.
The result of all is that many companies simply can not compete with the rest on equal terms. If you look at any company developing open source software, then those that use proprietary software have the best performance.
Based on such considerations, Peter Levine concluded that the way open source software companies make money goes towards abandoning the usual sales and support sales model. Instead, he suggests using open source software as a SaaS platform . You can develop a SaaS product using any free unix-like system as a basis, monetizing only the SaaS product itself, without violating the licensing requirements of an open product. Today you can already see hybrids of open and proprietary software. For example, Salesforce, Digital Ocean and Github. Also similar can be attributed to Facebook and Google. Facebook has developed and uses open source software for its infrastructure by adding proprietary software at the top level. Google generates large amounts of open source, although search and advertising are proprietary.
This trend may explain the transfer of proprietary products to the cloud. For example, a Microsoft office suite can be largely functionally reproduced by open alternatives, but Office 365 introduces new functionality to the base office and adds additional services such as file storage, integration, and mobile access. Thus, one can see a clear tendency to abandon monolithic products, both open and not quite, and the transition to a different business model.
Peter Levin (Peter Levine), a partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who supported Facebook, Skype, Twitter, Box and many others. In his opinion , the usual business model of an open source software company is unpromising. In this case, the receipt of income for maintenance, support and guarantees for the application, which is in free access. Judging by all the indicators, "such a business simply cannot generate sufficient income . " Explaining his words, Levin clarifies that such companies have the problem of investing in innovation, which makes them dependent on the open source community.
What is the problem, because today the model of development of open source systems has already proved its applicability and viability?
')
Income constraints
Without adequate funding, companies cannot offer a significant differentiation of their products. As a result, a significant portion of potential customers is lost. So companies fall into a vicious circle when one pulls the other along. The presence of open source software, in some ways, provides competition to the market, forcing proprietary companies to offer reasonable prices for products, but ...
Uneven playing field
The problem is exacerbated when you consider that open-sourced products with partial monetization must compete with both proprietary and similarly open companies. We also add the lack of opportunity to spend money on marketing and sales, as budgets of competitors with proprietary products can afford.
The result of all is that many companies simply can not compete with the rest on equal terms. If you look at any company developing open source software, then those that use proprietary software have the best performance.
Hybrid future
Based on such considerations, Peter Levine concluded that the way open source software companies make money goes towards abandoning the usual sales and support sales model. Instead, he suggests using open source software as a SaaS platform . You can develop a SaaS product using any free unix-like system as a basis, monetizing only the SaaS product itself, without violating the licensing requirements of an open product. Today you can already see hybrids of open and proprietary software. For example, Salesforce, Digital Ocean and Github. Also similar can be attributed to Facebook and Google. Facebook has developed and uses open source software for its infrastructure by adding proprietary software at the top level. Google generates large amounts of open source, although search and advertising are proprietary.
This trend may explain the transfer of proprietary products to the cloud. For example, a Microsoft office suite can be largely functionally reproduced by open alternatives, but Office 365 introduces new functionality to the base office and adds additional services such as file storage, integration, and mobile access. Thus, one can see a clear tendency to abandon monolithic products, both open and not quite, and the transition to a different business model.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/292272/
All Articles