The Race for Open-Source

1. The Race for Open-Source

2. The Race for Open-Source • 4 organizations building an OSS TM/GMS • Big Money involved • 4 players at the start • Welocalize with Ambassador/GlobalSight • FOLT with openTMS • Andrä AG with Andrä TM • ]project-open[ with TinyTM • Others?

3. Questions • Who is going to win? • Will the winner break the monopoly of SDL/Trados/Idiom? And which monopoly: • Monopoly on TM (Trados)? • Monopoly on GMS (Idiom)? • How will this impact customers and LSPs? • Is there a benefit of getting involved early? • What is the cost of getting involved early? More Questions?

4. About ]project-open[ / TinyTM

5. About ]project-open[ • Open-Source Project Management System • Founded in 2003 • Position • #1 in Translation Business Management by Common Sense Advisory in 2006 and 2008 • #1 in Translation Management with ~500 installations • #50-300 on SourceForge • Reference Customer • ~3.000 Customers total • ~500 Customers in Translation • reinisch • VAW-arvato (Bertelsmann) • milengo • Lexcelera • …

6. TinyTM Overview • Founded in April 2008 • TinyTM consists of: • A “Translation Client” • A “TM-Server” • A “Protocol” that connects the translation environment with the TM-server • Currently Supported Clients • TinyTM MS-Word Client • MetaTexis for TinyTM • OmegaT for TinyTM TMServer Trans-lationClient Protocol TinyTM Supporters

7. Players

8. Welocalize / GlobalSight • Company • Welocalize is the world’s #17 localization company • Owner of “Ambassador” as part of the takeover of Transware in 2007. • Technologically • Targeted at translation buyers • Translation environment, terminology management, workflow • Written in Java and based on enterprise “J2EE” architecture. • Proven system with a user base of more then 10 enterprise customers • Very large application with more then a million lines of code • OSS Strategy • Steering committee • Status • Needs to replace several closed-source components by pure open-source code. • Started in September 2008 and scheduled for end of 2008.

9. FOLT / openTMS • Organization • Industry Association, including Euroscript • Technologically • Targeted at European translation buyers • To be written in Java • Code to be released under Eclipse license • OSS Strategy • Starting off with the steering committee approach • Large community of some 20 organizations • Talking since 3 years, starting with openTMS since a year • Status • No code yet • Writing a new software from scratch • Rewrite is chance for better code

10. Andrä AG / ontram TM • Company • ontram live at three Fortune 500 companies • Decision to open-source the ontram TM in March 2008 • Preview, filters & translation environment will remain closed-source • Technologically • Targeted at translation providers and buyers • ontran TM written in Perl • performance-critical libraries written in C++. • Integration via SOAP web-service interface. • Community • “Classical” open-source community & SourceForge • Status • Working on OSSing since three months • First release in 2009 Q2, preview at the end of the year

11. ]project-open[ / TinyTM • Company • Leader in translation management system • ~500 customers in the translation industry, 3.000 total • Initiated TinyTM in March 2008 as an independent open-source project • Technologically • Targeted at translation vendors (and buyers) • “Inspired” by EURAMIS TM • Client-Server architecture • Server implemented inside PostgreSQL database • Status • V0.1 published in May 2008, fully operational. • “Optimization phase” for Q1 and Q2 2009 • Available clients: • TinyTM MS Word client, • MetaTexis for TinyTM, and • OmegaT for TinyTM.

12. Open-Source Software

13. What is Open-Source? • Licensing model Software itself is free • Collaboration model Distributed communities, democratic • Business model Companies rely on service instead of license revenues • Software development model Cathedral vs. Bazaar” – frequent and early releases • Economic model Meritocracy instead of financial power • Distribution model Reduce sales, let customers try the software More Ideas on OSS?

14. OSS as a Challenger Strategy • Low marginal costs => Monopolistic • Free software to break a monopoly • Examples: MySQL AB with 100 employees, recently bought by Sun Microsystems, Inc. • MySQL is now market leader • MySQL is predicted to become monopoly

15. Efficiency • Cost of Marketing and SalesCommercial software vendors spend between 50 percent and 90 percent of license revenues on marketing and sales. In contrast, OSS sells by word of mouth and news items in magazines and trade journals, both of which are available at no cost. • Cost of Development Open-source developers usually build their systems based on existing software. These base systems also tend to be of higher quality than closed-source systems, reducing the development overhead. • Cost of Support A large part of customer support tasks are handled in open-source discussion forums by members who want to improve their visibility in the community. • Cost of Innovation: Many open-source projects “copy” the leading closed-source product on the market. While it’s not especially innovative, this “follower” approach eliminates a lot of the costs of experimenting and developing a new solution. • Cost of Decision-Making: With all the savings above, open-source projects don’t need a heavy (and heavily paid) management structure in place. Instead, decisions are frequently taken by community polls or by an elected steering committee. Efficiency Factor: 10x – 50x

16. OSS Business ModelsFor the Translation Sector • “Classical” open-source business model • Build on a powerful platform and reuse code of other’s • Sell service revenues • Sell “enterprise version” or “extension modules” • Examples: Andrä AG, TinyTM/]project-open[ • Advisory board strategy • Get feedback for product development • Involve potential customers early • Collect money to finance development • Examples: Welocalize, FOLT

17. Who Will Win?

18. Success Factors • Best ProductObviously, functionality and usability determine the success of a project. • Time to marketWhich company can release a full-fledged open-source product first? According to their road map, Welocalize will be the first. However, there are considerable risks in open-sourcing a project, so there is a good chance that they will not meet the deadline at the end of this year. • Largest communityFOLT probably has the largest “community” (people participating or otherwise involved in product development) at the moment, thanks to their lobbying work in the last three years. However, such an advantage can change quickly, because FOLT’s community is not (yet) locked in by their product. • Business ModelEven a late entry might win the race if it has a superior business model, and is therefore able to invest more resources into the development. • Software EfficiencyOn the other hand, bloated and inefficient code can kill an open-source project if open-source developers find the code repellant or if the cost of software maintenance exceeds the open-source revenues.

19. One or Many Winners? • Software vs. Physical Goods LocalizationThere is a considerable difference in localization requirements between software companies and companies producing machines or other physical goods. This difference somehow corresponds to the location of the company, with software companies usually located in the Americas. • America vs. EuropeAmerican buyers are mostly L10n, European Buyers mostly technical documentation • Localization customers vs. Localization providersThe difference of needs between these groups is very important, so that there is hardly any overlap between them in terms of applications.

20. Conclusions • Best TM? • Best GMS? • Fastest time to market? • Largest community? • Most American? • Most European?