According to foreign media VB , in the past ten years, entrepreneurs from China and abroad have invested heavily in open source software companies. Recently, we can still see a significant increase in entrepreneurs investing in open source startups, and competition in this field has also increased. Increasingly fierce, open source software (referred to as: OSS or open source software) is a kind of software with open source code. "Open" is the main reason for its popularity, because it means that users can freely use, copy, distribute and modify Source code is used to supplement vulnerabilities and customize functions according to specific needs. Compared with private or proprietary software, foreign media produced a data chart analysis and finally came up with amazing results. Open source software is obviously becoming more and more popular. In comparison In the past five years, the amount of dollars invested in open source software has increased to 10 times that of the past 5-10 years. However, VCs and entrepreneurs are not the only ones chasing open source software companies. Companies of all types and sizes are using OSS. Recording the numbers, this year's annual survey by "The Future of Open Source Software" shows that the proportion of companies running open source software internally has increased from 50% in 2014 to 64%. So why is this?
Analyze it calmly
Almost all enterprise software developed in the past 25 years has adopted a "top-down" sales approach, with well-paid sales representatives in suits traveling the world visiting top executives to sell their proprietary software products and try to convince them to use them. Its new product, if the sales rep gets what he wants, the customer's CIO will then "rush" the company to buy the new software, so that the vice president and developers will use the software. About a decade ago, a large number of innovative startups emerged, which Not only are there disruptive products, but there are disruptive go-to-market models for those products: SolarWinds, AppDynamics, Splunk, and others have developed products with freemium models that are downloadable from the web for both the VP and developer classes. IT staff provide almost immediate value. What makes these companies completely different is that they do not incur costly sales reps until the customer uses the product. Freemium products allow these companies to measure the impact of the initial interaction and only once the customer uses the product. They are sure that a potential customer is interested in adopting it, and then the sales representative will sell the improved version of the paid product to the customer. This is more effective and cheaper than the method that many companies have used in the past to sell proprietary software. Open source software companies are going in this direction . A revolutionary step has been taken.
Open source also has a market
Open source software is also a cultural phenomenon that adapts to modern developers. Modern developers do not like to buy products brought by salesmen at high prices. They prefer to try them first and then pay. They need flexibility and speed. They hope to get similar products in the future. Decide to buy after receiving feedback, because open source software is free for anyone to preview and use. It is naturally more flexible than proprietary software (you don’t need to worry about cost constraints). In addition, as developers focus on some open source The project has gradually established some large and active communities, and the spread of word-of-mouth is also a matter of course. Compared with proprietary software controlled by a single entity, the code upgrade and stabilization speed of open source software are superior. A large number of open source software companies are following suit. It's public and successful, things have changed inside the organization, developers are calling the shots, there's no doubt about it, and world-class entrepreneurs have figured out how to take advantage of all the advantages that an open source software company can benefit from, including finding a product/market Fit and make full use of community resources to create a more efficient sales and marketing growth point. We are not sure that each of the 31 companies that have raised a total of approximately US$4 billion in venture capital in the past five years will succeed, and some of them have not yet Find the secret to winning, but among this group of companies there are some winners that are different, highly disruptive, and born to play the long game and become the next mainstays of the enterprise software industry.
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