Mapping of Belgian open source market Presenter : Dr Ir Robert - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

[ RMLL 2013, Bruxelles – Thursday 11 th July 2013 ] Mapping of Belgian open source market Presenter : Dr Ir Robert Viseur

Open source in Belgian public sector 2

Prerequisite: organization of Belgium • Belgium = federal state composed of regions (territory) and communities (people). • Regions (3): Flemish Region, Walloon Region and Brussels Region. • Communities (3): French Community, Flemish Community, German Community. • Merger between Flemish Region and Community (= Flanders). • Belgium also composed of provinces (10). • Closest to the citizen: Belgian municipalities (589). • The municipalities are autonomous but... • Subject to the power of supervision of the Walloon region. 3

Open source policies in Belgium • No real headquaters for informatics policy. • Consequence: widely heterogeneous policies... • And case-by-case use of free softwares. • Differences between federal state, Flanders, Walloon Region, Brussels Region, French Community, German Community, provinces and municipalities. • Policies in municipalties influenced by power of supervision of the Walloon region. • See ( Viseur, 2010 ) for more details. 4

Big picture (federal state) • Variable use of free softwares. • Strong interest in open standards, less for free sofwares (FEDICT). • Open data portal: data.gov.be . • European context: INSPIRE, PSI, etc. 5

Big picture (Brussels) • Variable use of free softwares • Support of free softwares by CIRB ( www.cirb.irisnet.be ). • Example: expertise in OpenOffice.org migration. • Interest for open data : • Open data portal for city of Brussels: opendata.bruxelles.be . • Availability of data from URBIS portal (CIRB). 6

Big picture (Flanders) • ICT services outsourced to Belgacom and HP consortium until 2014. • Some reference initiatives. • Examples: • Free software use in Schoten. • Open Data in Gent: data.gent.be . 7

Big picture (Wallonia and FC) (1/2) • ICT teams and external ICT structures dedicated to Walloon public sector (+ outsourcing: e.g. former GIEI). • Walloon authorities in flavour of promoting free softwares and open data. • See « DÉCLARATION DE POLITIQUE RÉGIONALE WALLONNE ». • « Promouvoir l'utilisation des standards ouverts et les logiciels libres » (p. 120) • See « Master Plan TIC ». • « Objectif stratégique. Libérer les données publiques pour doper l'offre de services aux citoyens » (p. 77). • But variable use in public sector... 8

Big picture (Wallonia and FC) (2/2) • Used by ETNIC ( www.etnic.be ) and SMAL ( www.smals.be ) ICT centers. • « Sleeping » forge: forge.etnic.be . • Bottom-up project: CommunesPlone. • Integrated with Qualicité in IMIO inter-communal structure ( www.imio.be ). • As a replacement for Agoractités and Qualicité custom softwares. • Open data portal (new): opendata.awt.be . 9

Keep in mind • Two lead projects: • CommunesPlone software suite (IMIO). • Open data in Gent. • Soon: Hackathon eGov Wallonia the 4th, 5th and 6th October 2013 in Namur ( hackathonegovwallonia.net ). • See ( Viseur, 2010 ) for more details. 10

Open source companies in Belgium 11

Sources of data • Study mainly build on LogicielLibre.be directory (~ 150 companies). • Only for companies clearly communicating their engagement in open source technologies (pure players or hybrid offer). • Less knowledge about the Flemish market. 12

Location of companies in Belgium 13

Size and rentability of open source companies in Belgium (1/2) • Low number of bankruptcies (~5 between 2004 and 2011). • Financial indicators (from BNB figures, median): • Solvability: 37.1%. • Equity: 129 239€. • Revenues: 3 256 911€ (partial data). • Rentability on assets: 6.8%. • Ratio « salaries / added value »: 79.7%. (work in progress...) 14

Size and rentability of open source companies in Belgium (2/2) • Ten open source companies in ERP sector (figures for 2009): • Total of 87 employees (average of 9,7 employees by active company). • ~45% of companies have 5 employees or more (average in walloon ICT sector: ~25%). • 80% of companies are profitable. • Companies creating the largest number of jobs are not always the most publicized. • Example: Alfea Consulting (22,8 employees, profitable). 15

Products and services available in Belgium (1/2) • What we looked at : • Sale of hardware • Certified hardware. • Open hardware • Open source edition. • Services. • Hosting, SaaS and cloud computing. 16

Products and services available in Belgium (2/2) ( Viseur, 2011 ) 17

Products and services: details (1/2) ( Viseur, 2011 ) 18

Products and services: details (2/2) ( Viseur, 2011 ) 19

Quelles sont les relations entre entreprises ? (part of the full graph ; work in progress...) 20

Lead open source Belgian projects • OpenERP. • Claroline / Dokeos / Chamilo. • CommunesPlone. • Drupal. • Ekiga. • The DataTank (new). 21

Discussion • Comparison with France • Lack of representative organisations such as April ( www.april.org ), Aful ( aful.org ) or CNLL ( www.cnll.fr ). • Differences between popular technologies due to average size of companies ? • In general • Wide range of services for open source technologies, but... • Lack of providers in several domains (SIG, lawyers and embedded softwares). • Some lead initiatives about open source or open data in public sector, but... • General lack of clarity about open* policies. • Commercial activities with open hardware or open data (except Data.be) ? 22

Thanks for your attention. Any questions ? 23

Useful additional readings... • Verstichel, P. (2013), Open Data – Données Publiques: Et la Wallonie dans tout ça ?, Jeudis du Libre, Mons, 20 juin 2013. • Viseur, R. (2013), Les modèles d'affaires des prestataires en logiciels libres, Atelier « open source », Agence Bruxelloise pour l'Entreprise (ABE), 27 mars 2013. • Viseur, R. (2011), Cartographie des marchés Open Source belges et français, Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre, Strasbourg, 11 juillet 2011. • Viseur, R. (2010), Logiciels libres et données ouvertes en Belgique: point de situation, Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre, Bordeaux, 08 juillet 2010. 24

Contact Dr Ir Robert Viseur Email (@CETIC) : robert.viseur@cetic.be Email (@UMONS) : robert.viseur@umons.ac.be Phone : 0032 (0) 479 66 08 76 Website : www.robertviseur.be This presentation is covered by « CC-BY-ND » license. 25