Software
Thats where closely held Tiny Sprl, run by 30-year-old Fabien Pinckaers, develops free business applications that are picking up customers during the recession.
The economic “crisis has been very good for me,” Pinckaers said in an interview at the farm in Grand-Rosiere. “Restructuring is very good for enterprise resource planning.”
Free programs such as Linux first challenged Microsoft Corp. in software that runs personal computers. Linux has gradually gained enough acceptance that government agencies and even some corporations are willing to try such programs for some of their most important tasks: applications that run billing, payroll and purchasing.
Thats been the province of SAP and Oracle, whose products can carry list prices of thousands of dollars per user. Tiny, Openbravo SL and other open-source software providers write programs that are often given away and can be modified by users, not just their authors. The providers make money by charging for maintenance and services.
Open-source applications and related services will drive $19 billion of revenue away from traditional, proprietary suppliers in 2012, rising from $7 billion now, according to researcher Gartner Inc.
“It aint hippie idealism anymore,” said Brent Williams, an analyst at Benchmark Co. in New York.
Tinys Business
Pinckaers, who business magazine Trends said may be “the Bill Gates of Belgium,” predicts revenue will rise to 10.5 million euros ($15.6 million) in 2011 from 600,000 euros in the first half of this year. Tinys client list includes Frances postal service and LEcole Nationale dAdministration, an elite French university.
Tinys Open ERP software manages purchasing, human resources and other administrative tasks. Requests for the software have increased by about 20 percent every two months since January, Pinckaers said.
Like the Linux open-source operating system, created in Helsinki, Pinckaers seven-year-old Tiny may build influence from a headquarters far from Silicon Valley. Pinckaers chose the companys farmhouse in rural Belgium for its proximity to the Universite Catholique de Louvain, which has a large computer- science department. Tiny has about 75 employees.
Pinckaers said he is open to a takeover of Tiny “not today, because I still have a lot of things to do, but in four or five years.” Meanwhile, Tiny will arrange 4 million euros of venture-capital investment by the end of the year, he said.
Certainly, open-source is a small part of the software market, and these programs sometimes dont have all the features that can be found in proprietary applications made by traditional suppliers.
Still, some analysts said SAP, the worlds biggest maker of business management software, is starting to feel the pinch. Walldorf, Germany-based SAP this week cut its sales forecast as clients in emerging markets and Japan spent less than it anticipated. Software and related service revenue will fall between 6 percent and 8 percent in 2009 before some items. In July, it had predicted the drop would be 4 percent to 6 percent.
“When there is an alternative to paying for a license, people will look at it very seriously,” said Jonathan Crozier, an analyst at WestLB Equity Markets in London. “Thats catching up a bit with SAP.”
RedHat Revenue
The phenomenon started in operating systems, where RedHat Inc., the biggest seller of software based on the open-source Linux program, has picked up corporate customers including Whole Foods Market Inc., Banco Pastor SA in Spain and Union Bank in the U.S. RedHats second-quarter revenue rose 12 percent as it attracted clients away from Microsoft and Sun Microsystems Inc.
“Prior to the fourth quarter of last year we were seeing some sporadic, slow but solid growth in certain areas of open source,” said Laurie Wurster, a Gartner analyst in Milford, New Hampshire. “Now, open-source producers are getting more interest from companies that wouldnt even have considered them in the past.”
Oracle didnt respond to a call from Bloomberg News seeking comment. SAP isnt being hurt by open-source applications, Chief Executive Officer Leo Apotheker said on a conference call this week after giving the forecast.