[LINK] Open source: 'World's largest software company'

[Glen Turner]

Bernard Robertson-Dunn quoted:
> , states if open source 
> products and services were calculated at commercial prices, open source 
> as a whole would be equivalent to the largest software company in the 
> world, with revenues exceeding the combined income of Microsoft, Oracle 
> and Computer Associates.

If we are allowed to combine industry segments into companies
then the biggest company is... bespoke development.

> Such findings are a telling insight into the ways open source can be 
> seen as a threat by large software companies such as IBM, according to 
> Dave Rosenberg, chief executive of open source start-up MuleSource.

It's more complicated than that, because IBM is such a large and
diverse company. Whilst open source threatens software sales, it
enhances IBM's opportunities for system integration and bespoke
software development sales. And we've seen how effective IBM
was at using Linux to paint a veneer of compatibility across
it's PC, Power, AS/400 and mainframe product lines -- and thus
addressing one of the major perceived problems with its hardware
offerings.

This isn't to say that there won't be losers from open source software.
Oracle strikes me as being about to lose big-time, and any smaller
database vendor is toast.

But is this a bad thing? Corporate software doesn't exist for its own
sake, it exists to support business. Reducing the costs of that business
lowers costs to consumers.

Moreover these are frictional costs. If Joe Bloggs can set up a website
for $0 rather than $15,000 then this has a market-altering effect.
You can see this in computer parts websites in Australia today. We used
to pay well over the odds for computer parts, now there's a huge amount
of competition between web-based retailers.