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Open Source Software Serves Niche Markets
mahendra writes "News.com is carrying an article about localisation of OpenOffice.org.
'So, what's new about that?', you may ask. The article talks about the potential markets that proprietary software markets are ignoring. By the time they realize the potential, Open Source software will have made deep inroads into these markets..."
So how big is the size of these niche markets? Maybe mainstream companies aren't interested in them in the first place.
And when these niche markets become mainstream, I am sure big companies like MS can easily enter these markets either by buying out or squeezing out.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Everything is a "niche market." The trick is covering as many niches as you can. That's why MS Office is so successful. Ubiquitous word processor of marginal quality? Check. Crappy relational database software? Check. Slide-show software with gazillions of incredibly annoying backgrounds and clip-arts? Check.
Open Office, if it is to succeed MS Office, must be of better quality. Makign inroads into niche markets is fine, but if Linux zealots are the only people your making inroads to, it doesn't really help much.
As for my niche, I'll use emacs, thanks.
I have discovered a truly marvelous
Alternate solutions have always filled niche markets. The only real special part of it today, as I have seen, is that Open Source offers a free or readily customizable solution to what used to be an expensive problem to deal with.
Mainstream software providers aren't generally interested in true niche markets. Growth isn't predictable and that doesn't look good to shareholders. Instead they concentrate on the masses, where their solution will work for a large enough population to make profit without having to work harder. It's simply better sense for them if they're market-driven rather than based around a central individual money-source.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
A small team of developers in Rwanda was just beginning work on a project to produce a localized version of OpenOffice....
:)
This is why linux has flourished with developers. It was by developers for developers. This is nothing new, we know the difference, and are willing to make it work to suit our needs.
Scientists seem to feel OK with Linux, *NIX, and open-source software as well.
Its that damned 99% of the rest of the population that we have problems with
Disclaimer: I work on OpenOffice.org OS X
The OpenOffice.org localization argument for serving niche markets has been around for a long time. A prime example of that is the Hebrew Office v. X incident. For me personally, however, I see OSS as a great way to provide competition in non-profitable markets such as office suites.
It's near impossible to try to form a cogent business plan around making office productivity software given the current state of the market. Microsoft has office suite dominance almost as large as Windows market share, and may even be more. Most every company has created some type of workflow based on Office and has legacy documents in Office formats that may stretch back for decades. With the advent of Visual Basic for Applications and Access, companies have also been writing custom business applications coded to work only with Office.
It's difficult to convince investors to pour money into a startup where you're competing directly against Microsoft, especially in a market where they've got the upper hand, established customer lock-in, and decades of software development. As an investor it's almost a sure bet that any money dumped in such a startup would be lost. It's near impossible to create a viable long-term self sustaining business with Microsoft as your competitor in a market they've already monopolized.
Open source software doesn't need to abide by the standard rules of business. It doesn't need to create a revenue stream and find investors. It doesn't need to worry about being underpriced by market dumping practices. As long as there are starving (or subsidized) programmers willing to work on it and eager users, OSS can produce competition in a market where convential businesses would most likely fail. This is one of OSS's greatest strengths.
Competition is at the core of evolution and innovation. It's comforting to know that OSS keeps open these avenues for competition when traditional capitalism fails. Hopefully this will help motivate both the OSS alternatives and Office to continue to improve and evolve.
ed
As we know, Microsoft applications are consistantly attacked because of its large market share and the damaging effect that the security holes in it have.
You're partly right. Microsoft applications _are_ consistantly attacked. The reason you propose as a given is wrong, though; it's not about market share, it's about fundamental design flaws making Microsoft's products inherently insecure.
Open source is checked by many eyes for security and other problems; MS products are only inspected in that way when, ahem, the code is leaked. If you think that an open-source developer who submitted a security backdoor or similar bug wouldn't be noticed, then I would have to question your experience with open-source development is limited.
"Open Office, if it is to succeed MS Office, must be of better quality."
No it doesn't. Not at all. The only thing it must be is good enough and cheaper. That's all it takes.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.