Click here to watch OpenSaaS: Why Drupal is the perfect platform for open-source + SaaS businesses
A new wave of startups are basing their business model on OpenSaaS-- online applications that a customer can subscribe to as a turnkey supported software as a service, or simply download, self-host, and self-support.
OpenSaaS offers customers the best of both worlds-- the innovation potential, freedom, and control of open source, plus the simplicity, quick time to deployment, and often lower up front cost of SaaS.
Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org are perhaps the best example of OpenSaaS, and, until recently, DrupalGardens.com was the only real Drupal based OpenSaaS example. In addition to We're now starting to see a number of more focused Drupal-based OpenSaaS products take flight, including the Opigno LMS (http://opigno.org), the Jobiqo recruiting platform (http://epiqo.com/en/jobiqo), and our own NuData DKAN open data platform (http://nucivic.com/products/nudata/).
We believe that Drupal is an exceptional platform for building OpenSaaS businesses. Unlike hosted versions of typical one-off open source apps, a platform such as Drupal is truly open-- not just in software license, but also in terms of the practical sustainable ability to fire your hosting vendor and take your platform to another consultant, because of the ubiquity of the Drupal developer community. And unlike many generic content management systems, Drupal today is a powerful enough framework to build and support focused web applications that deliver an exceptional end-user experience, thanks to the maturity of the platform, and the commodity availability of Drupal Platform as a Service (PaaS) from Pantheon and Acquia.
This session will outline what OpenSaaS is, our experience with building a Drupal-based OpenSaaS business, and how you can do it too. You'll also hear Josh Koenig about why OpenSaaS may in fact be a critical for the long-term competitiveness of Drupal in the face of growing competition from proprietary SaaS platforms.
For more on OpenSaaS, see my article on opensource.com: http://opensource.com/government/14/1/opensaas-and-government-innovation