Open source revenues on the rise, says IDC

published 30 July 2009

Open source software (OSS) is on the rise, according to a report released this week by IDC.

The analyst firm's latest study has predicted worldwide revenue for OSS will increase annually by 22.4 per cent, leading to revenues of $8.1 billion (4.9 billion) by 2013.

Michael Fauscette, group vice president of Software Business Solutions at IDC, said: "The open source software market has seen a strong boost from the current economic crisis. OSS is increasingly a part of the enterprise software strategy of leading businesses and is seeing mainstream adoption at a strong pace."

The report said that this rise is partly due to the much higher level of acceptance for OSS over the past year as well as the struggling economy sending users its way.

It also revealed that larger vendors, including Oracle, IBM and Dell, are raking in revenue indirectly from supporting OSS, as well as helping with the widespread adoption.

Fauscette concluded: "As the overall software industry continues to consolidate, it will be key for OSS vendors to reach scale if they plan to continue as a standalone business."

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation has come out in support of IDC's findings and predictions.

"Economic crisis tend to clarify people's thinking and accentuate existing trends in the market place. This is no exception. The IDC report underscores the fact that open source provides real value for the money and it took a recession for people to figure that out," he wrote on his blog.

"For a world addicted to high priced proprietary software this may have been the bottom that will transition the enterprise IT industry to one of shared innovation, true value for the money, and higher levels of service."

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.