Open Source – the biggest disruptor in software; ever!

I just came across this story.

Well blow me down with a feather…

Open-source products accounted for a 13 percent share of the $92.7 billion software market in 2006, but should account for 27 percent of the market in 2011 when revenue is expected to be $169.2 billion, according to Gartner research.

Just think about that for a minute… Over a quarter of the whole software economy likely to be based on open source. That’s really big, nearly $45 billion. In less than 5 years time. Last year it accounted for about$12 billion; and that’s not too shabby in my opinion.

In another interesting quote we get,

Wurster also spoke on some of the market accelerators to open source, which included the low barriers to entry and increased return on investment, the availability of high-quality solutions at low cost, the access to open standards and development processes, vendor independence and flexibility—resulting in investment protection—and faster procurement and a shorter development time.

That sounds pretty compelling to me. I believe we should be showing this to our MPs. Perhaps they might finally grok the idea that not everything needs to come from Microsoft or SAP or Oracle. And that there are BETTER solutions, and not just cheaper alternatives.

We are at an very interesting point in IT and business history. Giving your products away for free is looking like a compelling business model. Although WE all know that anyway… 😉

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