White Papers Is Now the Time for Open Source in CTRM | Page 6

Is Now the Time for Open Source in CTRM?

of the day, it still is less than a 100% fit to requirements. In following this approach, vendors struggle
to build out, on top of their own version of their industry model, a complete multi-commodity, multi-geography E/CTRM solution; and as they build out this
‘blob’ of functionality on that unique interpretation of
the industry, it becomes harder and harder to maintain and support. We have seen this so many times
in the past that it is “old news”. Eventually, legacy
vendors and products lose their agility to react and
adapt to market changes or developments, and in so
doing, an opportunity emerges for ‘five guys in a garage’ to build a new solution on the latest technical
platform and off we go again.

A ComTech Advisory Whitepaper

So to revisit and rephrase the question posed earlier, “What
would happen if someone started giving away their source code in the
same way that operating systems like Linux, DBMS technologies like
MongoDB and even predictive analytical tools like ‘R’, are given away?”
There’s no question that a disruption in the ETRM/CTRM software
market would occur and that some vendors might not be able to react
quickly enough or appropriately. However, as proven by RedHat and
others, there are other ways to make money with open source software.
Late last year, for example, MongoDB Inc. raised $231 million, and became the first billion-dollar open source startup. For the existing CTRM
vendors caught up in a wave of open source adoption, quickly accepting
and becoming expert in the new standard would be key. This would
allow them to rapidly produce and implement new components that
would reach and capture a very large and emerging market.

NEW SOFTWARE APPROACHES
IN CTRM
The CTRM space is already seeing the advent of fr \