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Re: Has SAAS killed open source as a business model?

rjeka hotels — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:18:46 -0000

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Josh Hamal
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Re: Has SAAS killed open source as a business model?

Galapagos Cruises — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:46:46 -0000

Thanks for posting this.. I agree with your thoughts.. It will only gain traction and revenues than an open source project..

Re: Has SAAS killed open source as a business model?

Francois Rey — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:46:15 -0000

SaaS and FLOSS are not exclusive at all, and none is overalapping over the other. I'm not sure why SaaS would kill FLOSS, in fact I many FLOSS aimed at corporate use are offered as SaaS (ERP, CRM, many groupware, dimdim, etc.). The cloud approach will even strengthen this trend, and the fact that the sofware is free as in freedom makes it easier to integrate and reuse standard components (fencing around each and everyone software has been an innovation killer in this industry). So actually I see SaaS and cloud computing more successful with FLOSS.
If your software is already free as in free beer and you own the trademark and you already get revenue from SaaS then open source won't hurt you! You may have upfront work to get it out, and may need to spend some resources on the community, but what's to be lost?

Re: Has SAAS killed open source as a business model?

Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:04:56 -0000

Anish

Interesting question. No right or wrong answer (yet).

I have been asking why $CRM (salesforce.com) has been hammered on Wall Street. SaaS should make more sense as you point out. But for me, that issue has almost zero relationship to the OSS model.

Allow me to assume that you have read Young & Rohm's "Under the Radar" about business models?

It has been a year or so since I last read it, but do not recall anything to suggest an "either or" (XOR) decision. I see nothing in my travels along the information superhighway to suggest that one must choose one model over the other. In fact one of my favorite apps, SugarCRM seems to offer both models.

Yes, I understand that you (and most of the world) have limited resources. Therefore, YuuGuu may have to pick one over the other. However, I do not think you are asking the proper question (Is SaaS killing OSS?)

The better question for you, is along the lines:

What do our customers need to succeed?

You will recall this being referenced as "find a need and fill it." You guys have done that. Or least made a great start at filling the need. And back to the 'money' issue, one of your competitors seems to have more money for advertising than "stars in the sky". I trust you know that "no one wins a price war!" Especially with your selling price point. {grin}

As I suggested to NuSphere (years ago, during a spat with the MySQL folks), you might want to consider forking. But in your case: fork the company. Your opening remark (above) talks of "expand development and distribution" which in my world, are two very different silos with very different requirements.

Conclusion: I do not believe Saas will (or could) kill open source.

-ski