Open Source BI: Jaspersoft Special Offer and the Real Value of Open Source BI
Yesterday Jaspersoft announced the availability of Jaspersoft Unlimited, a special offer at a lower price. Jaspersoft offered a similar package back in 2007, but this time training has been added to the bundle.
Brian Gentile, Jaspersoft CEO and open source core advocate, commenting the news told me:
We’re also offering this package now because we are seeing increasing demand from the largest organizations who need to dramatically lower the costs of developing and deploying BI applications during the course of the next 12 months. With Jaspersoft Unlimited, they can test drive the entire suite, start or sustain their most important BI projects and pick and choose what is most valuable to their organization over the course of the next year.
Jaspersoft decision to make a special offer differs from GroundWork approach, aimed at establishing a position at the lower end of the market (and yet educating users to ‘buy’ open source services). Jaspersoft adresses a different audience, and understanding what takes to deploy a BI solution added a 4 days training.
Beyond marketing hype, Jaspersoft is working on its idea of open source whole product concept, and the recently renewed forge is another step in that direction. Low-end disruptive innovation is the ideal arena for open source lucrative coopetition, and I am looking forward to know more about JasperSoft Community Vibrancy Index (CVI).
Metrics like this might help to determine if the real value of open source BI is – as Forrester analyst Boris Evelson says – just the lower cost of R&D, or it is also about incremental innovations.
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