Mediaboss Marketing

If you're in the managed IT services business, there's a good chance you use open source software to help deliver services to clients.

In order to make the most of open source, it's important to understand the different strategies that can add value to open source platforms.

In other words, if you're an MSP, you should understand how open source code which is usually (but not always) given away for free can be leveraged to provide products or services that people are willing to pay for.

This is a topic that has been central to the development of open source and free software since they emerged in the 1980s and developers who gave code away for free began thinking of ways to make money.

Open Source Business Models

Over the years, free and open source software developers have tried a number of different strategies for monetizing their software.

The main ones include:

This list is not exhaustive.

Other open source business models have been tried, sometimes with success, over the years.

But for MSPs, the five open source business strategies discussed above are the ones that are likely to be of greatest interest.

Again, that matters if you're in the managed services business and use free or open source software.

You need a way to convince your customers that obtaining that software from you, or getting your help in managing it, is a service worth paying for even though the software itself is free of cost.

See original here:
Five Ways MSPs Can Add Value to Free and Open Source Software - MSPmentor