Open source as part of your software development and sales strategy

Increasingly, both the private and public sector in Australia are planning and rolling out open source solutions. For software vendors, open source software provides a significant challenge: it can rapidly become a major threat to existing income streams. The largest software company in the world, Microsoft, from the evidence of its on going publicity campaign against open source, clearly views open source software as a major threat on both the server and the desktop.

If an open source application becomes available that competes (in terms of user defined major features) with proprietary software, it is likely that it will replace the proprietary software. This does not, however, mean that software companies will disappear as a result of open source. Far from it, there are a number of ways in which open source software can be used as a competitive edge to grow revenues.

Open source software is already a major competitor on the server platform - the open source web server, Apache, commands well over 50% of the enormous web server market. On the desktop, open source is just starting to compete. For example, the open source Open Office package (word processor, spreadsheet and presentation package) is winning ever wider acceptance.

Interweft will help your organisation to explore the threats and opportunities posed by open source and assist in identifying strategies to maximise the opportunities and minimise the threats.