April 21st, 2008
SaaS is the secret sauce for OpenProj
Projity CEO Marc O’Brien called with his first update in a few months on OpenProj, the open source project management tool his company is pushing.
The top line number is 1 million. That’s how many OpenProj downloads he expects, just from Sourceforge, just this calendar year.
It’s the tip of the iceberg.
“We now have different distribution channels, Star Office being one of them. We’re going to be in Symphony” from IBM.
This is in turn creating new opportunities.
“We’re bringing it to places like Sri Lanka where they either pirated it Microsoft Project or didn’t use itproject management software. We’ve already been translated into 12 languages with more on the way. We’re on a CD in Galician(northwest Spain), and it’s translated into that.”
All very nice, but show me the money. Where is the money coming from?
Software as a Service (SaaS). ”Our business model is to offer OpenProj on the desktop and then a SaaS project for teams.” The company has built its own data center to handle the expected demand.
“We have users in Uzbekistan, and we wouldn’t have the SaaS opportunity there otherwise. The open source and commercial side can be very good together if you do it correctly. It’s a very clear cut desktop to SaaS subscription. It’s a positive effect.”
How about some news? O’Brien obliged.
“We will be rolling support contracts out in the coming quarter as well. The immediate release was a step function, from OpenProj to Project on Demand. We have some large organizations now using OpenProj.” Support is a logical next step.
And there were some very enticing hints of what might be to come. Project management should be as basic as spreadsheeting, he said. Watch this space.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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