Matt Lawton of IDC has a great job. He gets to spend his time analyzing open source business models and markets to see where it's all going. According to a research report he just released, it's going up. Way up. He has the standalone open source software market pegged to grow 26% through 2011 to hit $5.8 billion by that year. Not too shabby. From the press release:The market for standalone open source software Matt Lawton of IDC has a great job. He gets to spend his time analyzing open source business models and markets to see where it’s all going. According to a research report he just released, it’s going up. Way up. He has the standalone open source software market pegged to grow 26% through 2011 to hit $5.8 billion by that year.Not too shabby.From the press release: The market for standalone open source software (OSS) is in a significant growth stage…. Adoption of OSS will accelerate over the forecast period of 2007 through 2011 as barriers to adoption get knocked down. Growth in revenue, however, will lag behind the growth in distribution of open source software…. IDC’s study shows that the drivers for OSS adoption, and in particular commercial adoption of OSS, include increased customer interest in OSS as customers realize that OSS provides them with more choice and leverage with proprietary software vendors. In addition, more financial backing from venture capitalists, more comfort with subscription revenue as a business model, and increased interest in OSS within larger enterprise organizations are helping to accelerate the OSS adoption rate. Among the key results presented in IDC’s study are the following:Worldwide revenue from standalone open source software reached $1.8 billion in 2006. This revenue will reach $5.8 billion in 2011, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26% from 2006 to 2011.One sentence in there really struck home with me: open source revenues will lag open source adoption. This makes sense because subscription revenues are recognized over the life of a support subscription, and because there’s a lot more free use than paid. This, along with a “low” 85% renewal rate might give Savio pause, but not me. Those who master these mechanics own the future of software. Period. And that future is looking brighter every day. Many of we open source startups are doubling or quadrupling bookings each year. Will this go on forever? No, of course not. But when I’m at $1 billion in sales I’ll be happy to slow down. At that point, I’ll buy IBM. 🙂 Until then…. Open Source