Study on the impact of Free / Open Source Software in France 2017-2021
On the initiative of Syntec Numérique, the CNLL and Systematic Paris Region, research firm PAC and researchers from IAE Valenciennes and IAE Lyon surveyed 366 companies, suppliers and users of Open Source solutions, in the fourth quarter of 2017, to highlight the economic weight of the sector and its impact on the economy as a whole, particularly on employment and innovation. The main results of this study were released on the occasion of the Paris Open Source Summit, held on December 6 and 7 at Les Docks de Paris.
Open Source is twice as dynamic as the French digital market as a whole: with an average annual growth rate of 8.1% between 2017 and 2020, the French Free and Open Source Software market will grow from €4.46 billion this year – €4.18 billion in services and €278 million in software – to €5.650 billion in three years’ time, according to research firm PAC.
France, European leader in Open Source: with 23% of the European Open Source market, France consolidates its position as European leader. It outstrips its larger neighbors in both absolute value and digital market share, with 9.9%, compared with 4.2 billion euros and 6.5% respectively in the UK, and 4 billion euros and 6.4% in Germany.
A major lever for innovation for 72% of user companies : for users, Free and Open Source Software is above all perceived as :
- 82%: a model for pooling and reducing development costs;
- 72%: a major lever for innovation in the digital sector;
- 70%: a strategic gas pedal.
Between now and 2020, while continuing to invest in middleware, databases and infrastructure, enterprise users will also find Open Source to be a lever for transformation, with Big Data, Open APIs, the collaborative economy, blockchains, Cloud services, IoT…
A strategic priority for service and software suppliers : 45% of suppliers invest more than 15% of their R&D sales in Free and Open Source projects.
Their main obstacles remain:
- Lack of referencing by purchasing departments;
- Customer uncertainty about maintenance and support;
- A lack of technical and legal skills.
Open Source, a job-intensive sector: the Open Source sector employed 45,000 people in 2017, and PAC estimates that it will create more than 4,000 net jobs per year by 2021. Among the skills most in demand in the future, developers,architects/consultants andsystem/support administrators are the most cited, with two-thirds (63%) of the profiles sought being Bac+5 and above.
“The Open Source sector is a creator of skilled, local jobs, with very little subcontracting or recourse to offshoring,”emphasizes Philippe Montargès, co-president of the CNLL. “Marc Palazon, Chairman of Syntec Numérique’s Open Source Committee, adds:”Open source software is mainly adopted by suppliers and end-user companies to reinternalize and control their information systems, pool and rationalize their software investments, and accelerate their strategic innovation programs . Stéfane Fermigier, chairman of the Free Software theme group at the Systematic Paris Region cluster and co-chairman of the CNLL, comments: “Most companies in this sector – particularly pure players – share the values of transparency, openness and collaboration that underpin the Free Software and Open Source movement . In particular, they are in the front line – both in terms of vigilance and in proposing solutions – on the subjects of digital sovereignty, net neutrality and the interoperability and transparency of algorithms”.