Scott Kveton

There is a trend that is occurring in the enterprise open source space that could become very lucrative in the coming years. For those of you attending OSBC this week, listen up.

The open source development model continues its march into just about every space that software exists in. Today, I want to talk about one that I think could be very lucrative for the companies involved; enterprise applications.

Recent years (or is just months?!) have seen Oracle turn into even bigger than the 800 lb. gorilla. Acquisitions have made Oracle and enterprise powerhouse but I believe they will be coming at a cost. Over the next 2 to 3 years, Oracle will be busy digesting these companies into the fold and integrating product lines across the board. This will be tough for customers as the pace of innovation for Oracle will slow while this happens. If you’re a new player to this market, you’ve got a chance to steal some market share.

The fact is, if you’re not in the game today, 3 years isn’t enough to jump in and gain any traction. The enterprise is finicky and even more so when it comes to critical applications. So who is going to make out like bandits? I think its the existing players in the market; Salesforce.com, Compiere, SugarCRM and Project.net.

Everybody has been talking about these companies for quite some time. What is most interesting to me is that each one represents business opportunities for the other. That is if they can all come together to work together.

Imagine that you are the CIO or more likely the Director of some portion of your IT organization. You have been using a CRM solution or maybe an ERP system for the past 10 or 15 years. Its time to re-up your license and maybe take the plunge from Oracle on VMS to Oracle on Unix or Linux. Guess what? Lots of people are re-evaluating the status quo and looking at new solutions like SugarCRM or Compiere. The best part about this is that they usually deploy one of these solutions in a small corner of the office, usually to replace just one component or application that is end-of-life.

What is very interesting about going with an open source (and more importantly open standards-based) product like SugarCRM, Compiere or Project.net, is that these products are built to work with other tools. Grandpa’s CRM solution wasn’t designed to play nice with anybody. Now, you get something like SugarCRM in the door, you can now look at deploying other products like Compiere or Project.net. Guess what? They will all work together with very little heavy lifting (that is in comparison to making that COBOL monster directly leverage one of those apps).

Each one of these players in the enterprise space has a unique opportunity to work together to drive business to one another. Here’s to hoping that they all realize that and execute on it.