Value of open source

http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=3010&blogid=14

Quotes:

"open source solutions save money for customers by doing away with the fat margins for existing computer companies – and thus shrink the overall market". As Whitehurst pointed out, open source software typically costs just 10% of the proprietary equivalent, and so the profits – and outflows - are reduced proportionately.

However, there is a very important corollary to this – the point that Whitehurst made several times. Indeed, practically his opening words were: “selling free software is hard”. A knock-on consequence is that it harder – roughly *ten* times harder - for an open source company to grow to a given revenue level than it is for the corresponding proprietary company.