Open Source Growing Quickly In Mobile And Cloud Development

Open source is now fully embraced by both the public and private sectors, and is being implemented across a wide variety of markets and applications such as social publishing and big data, according to a survey. Uuser confidence in open source continues to grow dramatically, represented by the fact that users are much less concerned with historical impediments to adoption such as licensing or conforming to an organization's internal policies. The future is bright for open source. Emerging technology segments such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), private cloud, public cloud, and mobile are driving growth in open source.

Key findings:

-- Respondents have identified SaaS, cloud and mobile as the main areas that will have a dramatic impact on open source and that are driving growth.

-- In 2010 there were 3,800 new open source based projects in mobile, with 94 percent targeting Android and Apple iOS, more than double the number in 2009.

-- There are now more than 470 open source projects targeting cloud computing.

-- For the first time, supporting the fact that open source has truly gone mainstream, end users accounted for 60 percent of the survey respondents and the quality of responses continues to increase, spreading across all levels of IT management from developers to a large number of C-level executives.

-- The open source customers are now more focused on mainstream technology issues, including improved operational excellence around areas such as support, product management, feature functionality and return on investment. This is in contrast to earlier years where the survey had pointed to things such as the legal implications of licensing and conforming to internal policies.

-- 56 percent of respondents believe that more than half of software purchases made in the next five years will be open source.

-- 95 percent of respondents noted that a turbulent economy continues to be "good" for OSS, though for the first year ever, lower cost has been overtaken by freedom from vendor lock-in as what makes OSS more attractive.

-- When asked about revenue generating strategies likely to create value for vendors, 56 percent said that an annual, repeatable support and service agreement was the most likely.

Comment from Matt Aslett, senior analyst, enterprise software, The 451 Group: The 451 Group's research has previously shown that the benefits of open source software are many and varied and the survey highlights the fact that multiple factors are driving the increased adoption of open source software, including freedom from vendor lock-in, greater flexibility and lower cost.

About the survey: North Bridge Venture Partners conducted the annual Future of Open Source Survey in partnership with The 451 Group. More than 450 respondents took part, including representatives from both the vendor and non-vendor communities.

Contact: http://www.northbridge.com