OpenMind 2008
1
Open Source Software
Business
in Finland
- Results of the National
Survey 2008
Nina Helander
Mikko Rönkkö
Mikko Puhakka
These slides are available online at http://www.sbl.tkk.fi/oskari/Publications.html

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Research interests
1. To provide an estimate of the degree of use of open
source software in the software industry
• Understanding the patterns of adoption
• Defining the determinants of adoption
2. To provide an estimate of how common and what kind
of open source business models exist in the industry
• How is money made
• What is the relationship with community (if one exists)

3
Different OSS user types
OSS CONTRIBUTION INCREASES
OSS OSS OSS ACTIVE LAUNCHING
OTHER APPLICATION AS TOOLS COMPONENT PARTICIPATION NEW
PUBLIC/ UTILIZERS IN R&D INTEGRATION & MANAGEMENT COMMUNITIES
PRIVATE OF OSS
INFLUENCE COMMUNITIES
BUSINESS
SOCIOLOGY
LAW
TECHNOLOGY
COMPLEXITY OF THE OSS MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK INCREASES
Source: OSSI Research Project 2006

4
Research process
National Software Industry Survey
• A survey of all Finnish software
product firms and a large part of
service firms
• Mailed to 3 639 firms in April 2008,
660 respondents
Follow-up study on firms that are
involved in open source
• A survey of the firms that indicated
involvement with open source
software
• Mailed to 430 firms
Statistical analyses
More information about the National Software Industry
Survey can be found online at http://www.sbl.tkk.fi/oskari/

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Examples of survey questions
Main survey
• Five questions concerning the
user of open source software
and relationship to developer
communities
Follow-up survey
• In-house use of open source
software
• Adoption of open source
software
• Open source software as a
part of offering
• Relationship to developer
communities

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Industry characteristics

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Demographics of the sample
Responding companies size distribution according to
Revenuefrom software product business
revenue from Software Product Business
The amount of companies represents 88 % of the
total revenues of the whole software industry
5%
5%
The average age of the companies was 9 years 8%
0-<0.3M€
Location: the industry is very concentrated 0.3-<1M€
● Capital area: 54% of the companies, 79% 15% 1-<3M€
of big companies (revenue of SW product 3-<10M€
business > 3 M €) 10M€-
67%
Profitability: average 10,4% (5,6%)
● In 27% of the companies over 15% (22%)
● 12% of the responded companies were
unprofitable (17 %)
N=545
Size: most companies are small or medium-sized
● 71 % of the companies: revenue of own SW
product business less than 300 000 €
● Total revenue/total personnel 110 000 €
(110 000 €)
● 45% had less than 5 employees (41%)

8
Development of the Finnish software product
industry 2000-2007
Revenue of SW product Industry Level Revenues 2000-2007
business grew by 8,6% Domestic and International Revenues
1,500
and was 1,52 billion
International revenue
grew by 12%* and was
45% of total revenues of
the industry
1,000
Revenue (Milj. €)
The value of domestic
business increased by
5%*
500 0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Domestic International
* Extrapolated to match industry total amount

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Results from open source
analyses

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Some empirical highlights
• 75% of responding firms use
open source software
• Firms that have open source
components in their offering
rated themselves more
innovative
• There is no statistically
significant difference
between different size
classes

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Empirical insights, continued
• A bit less than half have some
open source components in
the offering
• Has previously been at around 20%
in this survey
• Building and maintaining
solutions based on open
source components the most
common business model
• Open source product
businesses are uncommon
• Again, open source is evenly
used in smaller and larger
firms

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Conclusions
• Open Source systems and applications seem to be main
stream currently
• 75% of firms have some open source activities
• Up from approx. 13% in year 2000
• Businesses that are based on open source, although
growing, are still minority
• However, depends largely on how one defines open source
business
• Open Source firms are mainly project houses
• Some fast growth and high profit firms

Sponsors and partners of 13
National Software Industry Survey
In addition to financing partners above, the following parties provided their expertise:

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Thank you for your attention!
Questions, comments, please!