We just finished the Eclipse Marketing Symposium at Eclipse World. One of my favourite presentation was by Rich Guth from Actuate. Rich did a great job describing the Actuate open source business strategy and the success they are having with BIRT Exchange.
Some highlights:
– Actuate generated $8 million in revenue from OS activities in 2007 and are on track to double in 2008.
– The BIRT Exchange site is successfully driving down the cost of lead generation to $50 per qualified lead, as compared to hundreds of dollars for a traditional marketing approach.
– Currently converting 1% of Eclipse BIRT users into Actuate customers but they hope to raise this significantly.
– Actuate’s core market is in the financial services industry. However, their open source strategy has introduced them ito new industries such as manufacturing, telecom, retail and hostpitality. In fact, 75% of BIRT users are outside of Actuate’s traditional industries.
I really appreciate Rich and Actuate sharing some of their business strategy. Rich’s presentation slides are online and we have written a case study about Actuate’s success. If you are developing an open source strategy for your company, I would highly recommend taking a look.
