What is Commercial Open Source

• Ability to test the application without investing a dime

• Ability to start small and grow the application in parallel with the growth of your business

• Ability to see what you are really buying under the hood

• Freedom and Flexibility (no vendor lock-in, flexible deployment options, flexible pricing)

• Greater flexibility and power in integration

• Investing into what really counts: Support, Integration, Customization

• Instant ROI. Making a return before making an investment

The biggest myth of “open-source” approach to Information Technology is that the main benefit it provides is being free. Companies that subscribe to this philosophy often quickly realize that this is a wrong approach to choosing business solutions. On the other end of the spectrum, many companies view “open-source” as being “anarchist” approach that offers no structure, no support and hence no stability or continuation of business. The biggest fear of open-source is that when you choose an open-source solution, you better have a technical expertise or you are on your own.

Reality is that none of these myths are completely true. Open-source approach offers and easy and risk-free way to start building your company IT infrastructure, without locking yourself into specific vendor and spending a fortune upfront, before realizing any benefits of your investment.

More and more companies are adapting to a new model of commercial open source. These companies receive the code and are free to do any changes or enhancements, but support and training is purchased separately from the vendor. Companies that are technology-savvy can do their own support and maintenance in-house. But if a company is looking to outsource, they can contract a third party company or go directly to the vendor, in order to support the application. With this model businesses are in control of their own destiny.  This will help them get where they need to be much faster and with least upfront investment.

The commercial open source offers the best ROI.  In many cases when you purchase an out of the box proprietary software, chances are you are mostly paying for advertising, sales and marketing that had to be done in order to reach you. With commercial open source, most of your money is put right back into the Research and Development.  Commercial Open Source companies can do this because their marketing and advertising costs are very low in relation to overall sales. Most of their advertising and marketing is done through a community of developers, partners and champions – through blogs, forums and by word of mouth.

Your company business rules are unique. No “out of the box” software can meet your needs completely. With open source you can have developers all across the world work on the code to improve your software and add ideas and solutions. 

The bottom line is: if your company is comfortable with controlling its own destiny with a little help from your vendor, then this is the model for you.  It is cost effective and in the end you come out with a product that you really want.

Queplix is the only commercial open-source application that is built purely on J2EE standard, enterprise-level technology platform. Its architecture is robust, scalable, secure and flexible. It has been proven and tested by Fortune 500 Global installations ranging in tens of thousands of users. For customer stories click here.