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

[ RMLL 2013, Bruxelles – Thursday 11th July 2013 ]

Mapping of Belgian open source market

Presenter : Dr Ir Robert Viseur

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Open source in Belgian public sector

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:
• pendata.bruxelles.be.
• Availability of data from URBIS portal (CIRB).

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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.

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Open source companies in Belgium

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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.

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Location of companies in Belgium

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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...)

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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).

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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.

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Products and services available in Belgium (2/2)

(Viseur, 2011)

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Products and services: details (1/2)

(Viseur, 2011)

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Products and services: details (2/2)

(Viseur, 2011)

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Quelles sont les relations entre entreprises ?

(part of the full graph ; work in progress...)

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Lead open source Belgian projects

• OpenERP.
• Claroline / Dokeos / Chamilo.
• CommunesPlone.
• Drupal.
• Ekiga.
• The DataTank (new).

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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) ?

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Thanks for your attention. Any questions ?

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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.

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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

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