“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change
something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
- R. Buckminster Fuller
What does Software as a Service (SaaS) have to do with open source? Not much,
you might think.
SaaS, as you probably know, is a delivery- and business-model for software
that has been proving quite disruptive to the traditional software business -
just as the Open Source model has been. The two combined may turn out to be
even more so.
Internet Companies, Hosters, Telcos, Carriers, Service Data Centers and
others, have been making money for more than a decade by providing services
based on Open Source software. Unfortunately for the makers of such software
- Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Postfix, Sendmail – just to name a few -
it didn’t help them to generate much revenues (sometimes,... (more)
If the Internet did one thing, it dramatically accelerated the flow of
information. This, in turn, has led to additional pressures on today's
white-collar workers - the so-called knowledge workers.
A reply to a written letter may well take a week - more than adequate in the
not-too-distant past. Today, not replying to an e-mail within a day is close
to an offense - and watching the "Crackberry Heads" and Instant Messengers -
"expected" response time is coming down to minutes and even seconds. One
thing that made this possible was the availability of open source operating
systems... (more)
Money is being made with Open Source. Some make spectacular money by
exploiting Open Source (Google, Apple) and some things wouldn't even exist
without it (Internet, Software as a Service, Cloud Computing) - so it really
boils down to finding the right business model.
BusinessWeek has a good one on making money and growing fast in the open
source world, titled "Open Source: An Open Question for Red Hat and Others".
The general theme is: Open Source companies have a tough time growing fast
and making profits - with RedHat and Novell as examples - altough "Software
supplier Red Hat... (more)
There has been much ado about Google Wave, for good reason.
I can't wait to play with it.
What is impressive is what you:
can do in an HTML5 app get when you leverage the web knowledge like the
Spelly extension does (a really really useful spell checker/corrector which I
would love to have on my iPhone) can do if you do P2P communications right.
For the past 8 years I've been a great fan, user and evangelist of wikis.
Wave picks up the original idea from old-time Smalltalker Ward Cunningham and
moves it 25 years into the present. Wave is what Ozzie's Groove always wanted
to be, bu... (more)
Aside from low prices, it's also cash flow and up-front loading of risk and
money of traditional, on-premise projects that are driving more buyers to
SaaS offerings.
In an economic downturn, "do more with less" and quick ROI behavior become
the norms. But wait, isn't that what open source and SaaS does? As budgets
constrict, as headcounts lower - demands on IT will not decrease; they will
almost certainly increase. Open source and Software as a Service will all
bring IT staff - and end users - the abilities and cost savings they need and
the innovation they want.
SaaS applicati... (more)
Rafael Laguna is Chief Executive Officer of Open-Xchange Inc., of which he was co-founder and chairman of the board until he took over responsibility as CEO in January 2008. In 2001, Laguna initiated the technology partnership between Open-Xchange's development team and SUSE Linux - today a Novell business. The result of this partnership, SUSE Linux Openexchange Server, became the best selling Linux-based groupware solution. Most recently, Laguna was crucial to the extention of Open-Xchange's product portfolio and formed the partnership with the world’s largest web host by known servers, 1&1 Internet AG.
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